


The Moon In Her Mouth

by BelowBedlam



Series: Verity [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Biting, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female Character of Color, Iron Bull Feels, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort of the spirits.” -Ntozake Shange</p><p>As a rare Dreamer, Kimani’s magic has been the anchor of her life from the moment it manifested within her. It is the one thing in a life of cages that she can count on to make her feel free. The closer she carries the Inquisition to Corypheus only makes her gift more dangerous, however, as the Anchor and other magics weave and brand themselves on her skin.</p><p>But Kimani has not survived this long to submit, not even to a man who would be a god.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Call-To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani Trevelyan joins the Inquisition with scattered thoughts and a lot of fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I'll start off by saying I'm super excited. I've never written in a game world before, but I'm super. Excited. I'm learning as I go, both playing the game and reading up on lore, and any comments and critique is welcome. I love what I've seen of people's work so far and I just wanna try and add to the pot. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy.

_Everyone is so afraid of magic._

 

“Join us, and help end this terror.”

Kimani’s fingers twitch as Cassandra holds out a steady hand to her. The Pentaghast woman is all anger and nobility, though she would not rejoice at being described as the latter, and the duo had both frightened Kimani and endeared her to the warrior from the moment she’d woken to angry Seeker eyes.  _I like you_ , she’d thought as Cassandra hurled daggers her way.  _If I were guilty I wouldn’t stand a chance._  In Haven the advisers inspect her like an animal; They all wonder if stepping out of the Breach turned her curls snow-white, and she doesn’t correct them because it’s so much easier. All that explaining of the kindly Fade spirit being killed whilst—no, they were strangers. Kimani regards them with equal parts awe and circumspect, tied tightly together by the string that now bound them all to this Breach.

What an underwhelming name, that. Not half as grand as “Herald of Andraste” uttered graciously by those who were so quick to believe her sent from a god but flinch when her unmarked hand forms small clouds from thin air. Herald of Andraste. Most ridiculous, and yet they squint their eyes at her when she says her  _actual_ name.

“A  _Trevelyan_ , you say?”

Not totally out of hand, seeing as the Trevelyans were known for being very fair and blonde. Even her father’s skin had forgone much of its Rivaini heritage, too light to even be mistaken for Antivan. She nods curtly, watching as the realization of “bastard,” dawns on them. She smiles with as little venom as possible; it’s not  _their_  fault, after all.

“And Kimani, is that…Rivaini?”

Now this irritates her; yes  _of course_ she is Rivaini. Josephine keeps a game face and for that, Kimani is grateful. Leliana already knows what she needs to know;  _she_ is a woman of her job if Kimani had ever seen one. Kimani doesn’t realize until a bit later that the spymaster is also a woman mourning.  _I couldn’t protect her,_ she’ll say of Divine Justinia, and Kimani will feel a tug at her heart because once, long ago, she’d said the same thing.

 

_Magic, a beast. And yet no one’s afraid of angering it. Of hurting us._

 

She hesitates at Cassandra’s outstretched hand because all at once, the fear of what is true rushes her like a bull. From the Conclave to the Breach, to standing now in this war room, her life, meager as it was, had been ripped apart and hastily brought back together, and she saw her reflection distorted in a shattered mirror. Her hands sweat, and when she wipes them on her trousers she expects the marked palm to leave a glowing green behind. It doesn’t. The mark is stable, whatever that means; to Kimani it only matters that it is still there. 

Her body hums with energy, faintly now that she is some distance away from the Breach. Her marked hand rubs her stomach haphazardly, thinking of what exactly trying to close that thing would do to her body.  _I’m going to need a lot of tea,_  she figures. Her mind does backflips on her, her head grows light, and she chuckles because is tea really what her thoughts go to during all of this? The 101 remedies she’d need to fight off…whatever this would do to her? Cassandra’s brows raise slightly; Kimani is sure they already think she’s crazy.

Maybe, maybe not, but she only cares about what must be done. What she must do.

Dread lays thick on her tongue.

 _Help end this terror_. How can someone, the  _only_  one, say no to that?She takes Cassandra’s hand because she doesn’t really have a choice; either she tries to fix the sky and possibly die, or doesn’t try to fix the sky and definitively die, most likely in a Chantry prison. What would her mother think?

The scar on the Seeker’s jaw curves with her smile. Behind them the others—the Templar, the Spymaster, and gilded Lady Josephine-- all nod approvingly. Kimani sighs, squeezing her fear into Cassandra’s hand. Cassandra, surprisingly, squeezes back.

And just like that, the Inquisition is born.

 

_Have they never seen a bear fight the cage, seen the bars threaten to give?_

_And then, give?_


	2. Declarations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani is all about saying it with her chest.

It seems as if demons are always there, waiting around for Kimani to feel her emotions a little too deeply. They wait, salivating. Since tumbling out of the Breach, whomever started this little game has been goading her left and right with evil spirits in the Fade. They start her out on Fearlings which is both insulting and a little funny, since she was fifteen the last time she had any issue putting down such a weak demon. The ones she's meeting now, so many years later, are thicker, yet still take more time than they’re worth to kill. 

On her first night as an innocent woman, and after failing to close the Breach, she’d been met with such demons in the Fade and did away with them firmly as a message to the puppet-master:  _Fuck with me if you want to._  

There was also someone bigger, stronger, and hungrier who sent minions after their target.

She's being played with; Kimani knows well enough that next comes a Terror demon. The ploy is in the timing, if the ominous “they” can manage it, but Kimani has had a lot of practice.  _When_  they hit her has yet to make much difference as the days in Haven turn to weeks; She is very honestly afraid, which lends her some inkling of power.

This does not  mean that she has overcome the mark in her palm; the voided green keeps her up some nights and she stares into it, whispering to it in hopes of it giving her something. _Anything._

  _What are you?_

When she finally takes sleep she takes care not to Dream but as a _somniari_ , sometimes the urge is hard to stifle. Still, altering the Fade with too many questions in one’s mind was asking for corruption: First thing her mother ever taught her, after they’d taken Kimani away.  _Don’t ask it, child,_  she’d said, casting a protective barrier around them as demons peered out from the Fade’s sickly green mist.  _Answer._ Kimani was only ten, and so opened her mouth  _only_  to ask questions. It was a hard lesson.

After returning from the Storm Coast, where Hessarian warriors pledged lives to her (this may never make sense to her), she’s sent Terror demons with horrible screeches and broken words meant to cut. This can be a proper affront. She is being felt out. So she had not met this demon, this master hiding in its domain until it knew how to properly take her down.

It makes Kimani imperious, sloppy, and her mother comes for her in the Fade.

“They can break you easier that way, baby.” Her mother, Asha, says as she pets Kimani’s short curls. Her barrier is violet and humming, impenetrable for as long as she can hold it. Whenever they meet in the Fade it is a brief visit, but now her mother lingers. She looks good, healthy; Kimani allows it for this reason. Not because she misses her.

“Yes, I know. I won’t let them.”  Even in the Fade she sounds tired, and she leans back on her mother, sighing. After the Conclave she’d seen Asha in the Fade for the first time in months, fighting demons that accosted her as she searched for Kimani’s dreams.  _You stay alive,_ she’d commanded. Now her mother falters as though she wants to say something. Kimani already knows.

“I will send for you soon. I want to send for you  _now_ , but I don’t like the feel of Haven yet. Give me some time, mama. Go convene with my aunties, see if they feel anything out of sorts. And eat. Be safe. And if anyone with Nightingales on their clothing comes to you, you can believe they are friend, sent by our spymaster. But mama, don’t come until I send for you.” She wants to keep her away; she might trust these people a bit with herself, but never with her mother.

“And if any Qunari come to me?”

“What?” Kimani turns, frowning. “A Qunari?” Her mother tries to smooth the worry from her brow.

“She was Ben-Hassrath, very clearly so. With the um...well, I can just tell eh? I don’t know what the Qunari want with you, but she wasn’t hostile.” 

Kimani flares for half a second before pushing the anger down, deep, into her gut.  _Not in the Fade_. She doesn't need to be pissed here.  _Later._  She smiles for her mother.

“Well, I hired one of the Ben-Hassrath a couple of weeks past. Maybe he’s covering his bases. You’re safe though, mama. I have people watching out for you. I'm still...learning exactly who they are, but they are looking out for you,” she says, and  her mother presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’ll do as you ask as long you  _keep yourself safe_ , Kimani.” 

It’s silly, but necessary that she nods in agreement. “I promise.” 

She wakes from her beautiful dream refreshed, sliding out of her nightclothes and into her uniform quickly before the cold breaks the warm barrier around her skin.

“I can only promise to try,” she says aloud, where her mother can’t hear.

As the weeks go by Kimani wonders whether it’s pertinent to inform the Inquisition that she is _somniari_ , and how Leliana feels about her mother. And, as the weeks go by, she finds less and less urge to say anything at all.

Three familiar raps at the door of her cabin have her calling, “Come on in, Seeker,” and bracing against the gust of wind slipped through with Cassandra. Outside the sky is only half-lit, the morning glow just beginning its sleepy crawl across the horizon.  _Good._  In the first week Kimani often over-slept whilst dealing with demons, which only made her groggy and skittish. She likes having a good grasp of time; waking in the early morning lets her track the day from rise to sunset. 

Cassandra closes the door behind her, the painted eye of her Order staring out blindly from her chest. Kimani can never look at it for too long lest it decide to look back at her, the only old wives’ tale she’s ever taken seriously from the telling.

“Mornin’, Cassandra.”

“Good morning, Kimani.” 

She has to offer Cassandra a seat or else she’ll stand there like a damn messenger boy when it was very clear that while Kimani has the mark, the Seeker runs this operation.

“To the Chantry?”  She asks, setting a hot rag on her face before dragging it through her hair. Often they eat breakfast together, Cassandra going over her day’s work and inquiring after Kimani’s health. Kimani would tell her of what she and Solas discussed; while she had attached herself to the elven apostate’s side, Cassandra did not like him. Yet, she always seemed interested in hearing his words from any mouth but his _. It is important,_  she’d say,  _that we know what is to better fix the issue._

 “Actually, I thought you might want to see the Chargers practice with Inquisition soldiers this morning. Their lieutenant is excited that you’ve returned, subtle as he tries to be.” 

Kimani hums her interest as she rubs a bit of oil through her curls, swishing a different oil between her teeth. After she’s finished, she wipes her mouth with the end of her hooded scarf before settling it over her head and shoulders. She’s in love with thing: powder-blue and embroidered with wildflowers, it had been in her inner coat pocket during the Conclave. Years ago, one of her aunties gave it to her for her 8th birthday. Aunt Tavi, the youngest.

“Watching men hit each other? Yes, even though I can only stay for a little while since today’s a big fighting day of my own.” 

“Yes and I support your judgement, whatever comes of it. Perhaps the other party will be amenable to negotiation, even after,” Cassandra says with a tip of her head, rising as Kimani beckons towards the door.

“Perhaps. I appreciate your faith in me. I truly do."

 If anyone is yet Kimani's friend in this frozen hellhole, it's the angry Seeker.

Cassandra gives a crooked smile. "Now, let’s see how well these boys have been beaten into soldiers.”

…

Kimani bellows encouragement to Krem as some red-faced blonde ( _not_  the Commander) tries hacking away at the Charger before falling into the rhythm of training he’s only half-digested. He’s a young boy with good musculature and a bit of a bite but Krem is young, too, and his training is writ in his bones. He lunges smooth as an Orlesian ballerina, hits hard as his chief, by the look of it. Krem knocks the wind out of the boy not five minutes in and Kimani hoots, hopping on her tiptoes.

Cassandra had stayed by her side long enough to finish breakfast but was lured away by the call of her practice dummies, which really do need to be switched out for something stronger. Even the broader-shouldered recruits shrunk a little as they passed the Seeker at work on one of her dummies; she was vicious, simply put. Kimani remembers when they’d first met, the first time she’d seen the woman fight a Fade terror, the threat in her voice when she demanded Kimani drop her staff. In all honesty, she could have burned Cassandra without the staff had she not been convinced the woman might just shake the flames off and behead her for the trouble.

It makes her smiles that, now, they eat breakfast together.

The Iron Bull also watches the fight, ludicrously under-dressed as fluffy snow drift thickens the air. He seems dedicated to partial nudity, to Kimani's confusion; It would be more irritating, what with it being very literally freezing cold, if he wasn't so appealing to her. His pants are ridiculous, but the rest of him certainly is not. Individual Qunari, she had been able to handle; she’d known a few on the road, as good of people as anyone. But they were Vashoth. He is Ben-Hassrath, of _all_ things.

That simple fact is all that matter now because now,  she is angry at his actions; even Leliana had informed Kimani of her intentions surrounding investigation of Kimani’s family, her mother’s people in particular. And yet this new man, this _paid_  man, had not. He'd just simply...gone snooping under the impression that she could not find out in enough time for it to matter. 

Well, he is _almost_ correct.

Bull catches her staring and waves cheerily; Kimani returns the  welcome with one crooked, beckoning finger. 

_Come here._

A beat passes before he stands, lumbering towards her. Spirits, even the way he walks is appealing.

And yet lying, even by omission, is not; Kimani steels herself, folding her arms.

“Morning, Boss,” Bull chirps as he approaches. “I take it I’ve pissed you off already. What’s on your mind?”

Up close he dwarfs her, and Kimani is tall, sturdy. She’s always been pleased that while she could not meet every man’s eye, neither could many of them puff their chests for looking down at her. Bull steps back as she scowls up at him, which only helps a little.

“Listen,  _The Iron Bull_ ,” she says his full name like a poison, “I understand that you are a spy. I understand the Ben-Hassrath as much as an outsider can, I think. And I understand your position as this…this double-agent. We agreed on these things. However, if you want to investigate my mother?” She tips her head up so there’s no mistaking the scathing look she gives him. “You run that by me first. Or don’t, and watch how far it gets you.”

Kimani can only imagine the flash of fright that had gone through her mother when she realized who’d come to her door. Ostwick is is not her native Rivain, where Qunari from Kont-aar are common.

The Bull is quiet for a moment, his face unreadable. She expects as much from a man of secrets, but he’ll do well to find his tongue. 

“I guess your ravens fly a bit faster than mine. I didn’t expect that missive until…now, actually.” He’s asking how she knew, how she’d managed one-up on him; he might not _look_ irritated, but it must twinge at him. Kimani is sure her quip will make it no better.

“Leliana feeds ‘em choice grain. Now, have I made myself clear? Do you  _get it?_ ” She asks the second question when he remains silent, squaring his jaw. “My mother isn’t part of any of your Ben-Hassrath shit, and you won’t makeher—“

“-Okay, Boss. Okay.” Bull quickly holds his hands up in surrender, though little else about him seems humble. “Asking after your mother wasn’t a command from any of my superiors, it was only me figuring you out. Trying to, anyway. She is not part of anything.” He softens his voice on the last point, and it’s almost soothing the way he bleeds the growl from his voice. “I apologize, Boss. Sorry.”

Kimani shakes her head. He’s missed the point.

“ _You need to ask me._  Do not sneak around my mother. Don’t go fucking around anyone else in my family. And if I answer a question with what you think is a lie? Not your concern because regardless, I’m still  _here_ , trying to work with everyone to figure  _this_  out.” She flashes the crackling mark at him, catching the ghost of his wince. “I would like to trust you, Iron Bull. You seem like a fair man, if not a good one, and I want the Chargers on our side, but don’t expect my advisors _or_ Cassandra to stop me from giving you the most painful boot up your big ass if--“

“Lady Trevelyan! Good to see you up and about.” Cullen is brisk, his pale face ruddy with the cold morning air. His ridiculous mantle looks warm, at least. “Bull,” he nods curtly to the qunari, “If you’ll excuse us, we’ve a war meeting to make.” He hooks her arm in his, gently steering her away from The Iron Bull until she pulls away from him. Not viciously; she understands that in this, Cullen is right. But she’s already started, and she can't stop now.

“One minute, Commander—If I hear about you snooping around my family. I’ll fuck you up, then kick you out, Bull.” She points at him but he’s no longer tense, only nods with his hands on his hips.

“I got you, Boss.” He says. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll chuck the missive.”

Kimani scoffs. This man thinks she's stupid. “No, you will not. Read up, big’un. You get to questioning, you-”

“-Ask.” 

Kimani nods, ire cooling.

“Right. Anyway, stay warm.” She looks him up and down, fights the urge to leer because spirits, she's not a heathen. “Get a few coats and stitch’em together for fuck's sake. Build a bonfire. However you keep warm.”

He smirks at this. "I have my ways, Boss."

Kimani knows an innuendo when she sees one, and raises her eyebrow at the overlarge man before taking Cullen's offered arm. "Right."

Cullen is another that she must watch. He tries to dance about his opinions with her, but Kimani is not on 30’s door unscathed without knowing a Templar by the sheer smell of him.

“Very authoritative,” He says approvingly as they walk toward the Chantry.

Kimani shrugs. “He calls me boss.”

“Indeed. I’ll admitI was frightened for a moment. You were very ferocious, my Lady.”

“I must prove my strength isn’t that right, Commander?”

“Well yes, but The Iron Bull spoke admirably of your fighting on the Storm Coast. His opinion of you seems very agreeable.”

It is strange how kind Cullen's eyes always are. Kimani has known kind-eyed Templars, and only some were as good as their gaze. She continually reminds herself that she must not think this way of the commander, not until he proves it. They must all work together.

Inside the Chantry is dim and candle-lit and smelling of woody incense. As they approach the war room Kimani slips from his hold, and he lay a light squeeze on her shoulder. She raises a questioning brow, and he gives her a wry smile.

“I suppose we’ll be getting more of that lioness here in a moment," he says with a chuckle.

Very true, unless, by the grace The Maker and the Spirits combined, they were in unanimous agreement on this decision. Kimani laughs.

“I suppose you’re right, Commander." She scratches her head anxiously before pressing against the door. “Shall we?”


	3. Targets Move

_Well. She's colorful._

Bull folds the letter into a neat little square after he finishes reading it a second time, sliding it into one of the pockets of his voluminous pants.

The Trevelyan woman had been right in that even if she’d asked him to destroy the letter before reading it, he wouldn’t have. 

Already Bull understands what the Inquisition is going for, regardless if that’s really what it  _is_  yet, and as it has become clear that this Kimani is the boss out of necessity if not by choice, his reports will have to reflect that beyond, “A woman of House Trevelyan.”

That would be pushing it, even for him.

Her little display had set him right, he has to admit; Bull does not scare her, which is as comforting as it is unnerving. He doesn’t know where she gets the bravado, being a Circle mage up until very recently; Maybe her time out in the world- a year, if he's remembering correctly- had hardened her up, because Bull doesn't doubt that she'd swing on him if provoked.

Or just turn him to ice, since she is  _bas saarebas_.

 _That’s biased_ , he thinks, mostly disapproving of the sentiment rather than the term's base translation. But she _is_ a mage, the daughter of what seems to be an apostate, who’d somehow learned of his findings of her mother in the Free Marches from a cabin in the Frostbacks. _Before him._ Bull had checked the makeshift rookery; other than Leliana’s and his own, there were no other letters in motion, and no one rides faster than birds. But if her mother is an apostate and she a proper mage…probably some Fade shit. Bull shudders. You had to be powerful, lucky, or both to swim through those waters often without getting bit. Maybe it’s a good thing the Herald is this particular mage. Maybe knowing her way around the Fade will help with answers so they can get shit back in order.

Yeah, he's going to have to ask. He's too curious.

Bull turns to better stretch his legs aside his table in Haven’s poor little tavern. A bit of rest is always welcome, but now that the Herald had returned from the Storm Coast with the Hessarians under her thumb he had expected to be put to work. This morning's show might have unwittingly earned himself some extra time. Bull rolls his bad ankle and wants to think that this is a good thing, even if he isn’t here to rest.

“Those boys aren’t completely hopeless, Chief.” Krem slides in across from him. “One of them got me pretty decent.”

It’s an understatement; one of those country soldiers had gotten his lieutenant  _very_ decently in the face. Krem likes to fuck around in a spar; it is always, to him, just a fun bout of it. Not like anyone else is getting close enough to hit him in the face on a job. Bull had chosen well in Krem, never doubted that.

“Between their Commander and that Seeker, they’ll be alright," Bull says, looking off at the far wall of the tavern, thumb rubbing against a tall glass of something horrible.

Krem frowns. “What, no jibe about how I let some country bumpkin best me?” He runs a hand through his damp hair. “Caught up in thought, Chief? Or still shook from that Herald woman thoroughly ripping you a new one? What did you  _do_?”

The Herald had been all bark, but very close to proving her bite; Bull could smell it on her, the potential, along with something else that was very pleasant. Some oil or perfume.

He shrugs. “Boss was just showing me who's boss. I deserved it. We live and learn.”

“Ah, well, don’t ruin the job before I get to spar with her. Rarely see mages good with anything but staves,” Krem says almost dreamily, and Bull slaps the table.

“Is “spar” code for something, Krem? Already you’ve got the hots for our employer?” He roars his laughter as Krem turns red.

“Nothing like that, just want to see her in act-aw, bugger off!” He wails as Bull laughs harder.

The door to the tavern swings open and both turn, Bull silenced by the eerie, calm anger that the Herald emits as she enters. She stops, seeing them, and narrows her eyes, sighing before turning on her heel to walk directly back out. Just like that, no fuss.

“Oooh," is all Krem says, signaling the barmaid for a drink.

Bull scratches between his horns.  _So, she stews_. He's also certain  that however she and her advisers had come to the decision made to go after the mages for help (because that is not a woman who wants anything to do with Templare, poor Cullen) has left a sour taste in her mouth. But Bull can handle this; He’ll give her time to wash it out before going to her.

Few things were truly settled with just _one_ shouting bout, after all.

…

Kimani wants a drink but fumes in her bed instead, rolling her shoulders from the obscene amount of hacking she’s just finished on one of Cassandra’s dummies. She’d made sure Cullen saw her as he passed; he should know what she does to keep from choking him to death.

“Scum,” she says aloud. “Scum, scum,  _scum_.”

Kimani can agree that the rebel mages aren't in the right, but the vitriol with which Cullen has spoken against them, as if every maker-forsaken Templar in the Hinterlands had, what? Welcomed them to their fire for ale?  _The Templars are no less guilty_ , she’d said,  _and the mages will be more valuable._  This, she stands by. There are more than enough Templars in Haven. Kimani would rather have her criminal brethren with her than against her, even if she had to…spirits, the word was poison so she must spit it out.

“I am conscripting my people,” she says to the wall. “Fuck me. I’m conscripting my people.” She still doesn’t feel like a proper decision-maker, or a proper person, but the decision is made. Solas will not approve. Sera will simply flit about. Vivienne might crack a rare smile. Kimani doesn't think Blackwall truly cares, one way or another. Sweet man, but a bit too needy to please.

Sometimes she feels every hour of the months that she has been in Haven, the way she is learning the people piece by piece.

A soft knocking at the door rouses her but it is not Cassandra, so she waits a moment before going for it. In a beautiful world it’d be an extremely apologetic Cullen, but there’s no beauty in a sky ripped open. It’s The Iron Bull. 

“I’ll tell you why we need to be good,” he says, standing back from the doorway and Kimani suddenly thinks that he’s had a lot of practice positioning himself around smaller people.

She leans against the door frame, arms folded, hip popped, scarf tucked snugly around her. If this is another attempt at apology she will hear it, even if it is from the wrong man.

“We’re good.” She’s not in the mood to make it easy, can't seem to find the will to be gracious; her tone suggests that they are anything but good.

Bull shakes his head, catching on immediately. “No, not  _I’m done yelling at you_ good. Better than that, good.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“Right. So If this deal is going to benefit the both of us, which it should, we gotta be good. I can and will do what you need me to do. It’s what I do; I supply a need. Needs. And you need me to tread softly about your personal things. I can do that.” 

Something about this jabs at her; She likes the sound of his voice but not so much  _how_  he talks, like he’s setting ropes for something later. Not riddles, not traps, but somewhere in-between.

“Well, we’ve established this, Bull. You only need to ask.” 

He cants his head. “Yes. But you need to trust me. How can I protect you if you don’t? Trust that I do as I say I’ll do. Trust that I am not here to jeopardize you or the Inquisition. Here.” He digs in his pockets and lays a folded piece of paper in her hand. The notes is in the common tongue surprisingly, but she supposes Leliana demanded it. It is about her mother. She’s back in Ostwick, of all places, though she’d moved away after Kimani was sent to their Circle. Perhaps she and the Bann have re-kindled their romance. Kimani knows that the love has, hilariously, never died.

The missive holds her parents' names, as well as her aunt Tavi's  and the fact that she and Kimani's mother are both –there’s a Qunlat term—  _Bas Saarebas._ She knows the word.

It makes her a bit happy that the missive is wrong; Aunt Tavi isn't a mage. But she's not going to correct it for him.

For a moment Kimani wonders what Bull expected to find, if he expected this. She rubs her thumb over the Qunlat term, fleetingly irritated that it does not smudge.

“Dangerous thing,” she murmurs before trying to return the letter, only to have Bull step away.

“It’s yours, boss. Toss it, keep it, whatever.” He holds his hands up again. Surrender.

Nodding, Kimani folds the paper and slips it into her own back pocket. Then she looks at him and waits for him to speak again. He does the same.

The wind blows a chill through her.

“Well," Kimani says, furrowing her brow at the way he simply stares back. "You... could ask. Now would be a proper time.” 

If he must know, let her words fill his Ben-Hassrath reports. But a smirk tugs at his scarred lips, and he shakes his head.

“So I can misspeak and have you set me on fire? I’ve had a taste of that, rather let you burn the right transgressor." Bull smiles, and Kimani fights the urge to smile back by frowning. Her head throbs. "Heh, how about you come have a drink with me? I’d say “on me,” but you’re the one paying me.” He holds a hand out to her, undaunted by the way she must scowl at him.

“No.” Kimani closes her eyes against the dull thud of what is surely a budding stress headache. “I don't want to drink right now. But, I want you to come with my squad to Redcliffe. Two days' time. We go to speak with the rebel mages.” There’s hesitation, and she opens her eyes. “Well? Are you my man or not?”

Is it resignation that shifts his stance, or determination? She doesn’t know, and with the dull pulse of her headache hardening into a rhythmic thump, she doesn’t care.

Bull nods. “I’m your man, boss.”

“Then this is how you'll make it up to me. yes? I’ll feel a lot better with your big ass on the squad. So.” She inclines her head to him, begins closing the door.

“Let me know when you want that drink. Offer's open."

“Maybe. I’ll be around, gather you all up for dinner. But now I need a moment.”

 He nods, face warming into something pleasant before the door closes on him.

“You got it.”

…

Honeysuckle. That’s what he smells on her.

How the hell she got honeysuckle perfume all the way in these mountains, Bull doesn’t know. Picked some up in the Hinterlands, maybe. Most likely.  

It’s still early but he retreats to his tent, sharpening his maul and listening to his Chargers shout at each other to g _et the fucking country boy, Skinner, sidestep like you mean it!_

His kind of calm.

His new boss is a storm beneath the façade of the other kind of calm, but at least he only had to endure the one shouting bout. Still, he isn’t sure if the steely quiet is any better; both have his stomach in knots that he isn’t familiar with. 

What he is familiar with is observation. Like most people, Kimani Trevelyan carries stress in her shoulders, in the set of her jaw.  Everywhere, it seems, but her eyes. This is uncommon. Her eyes, big and golden hazel, sparkle only on merit of their shade, pop only because she has eyelashes the color of snow. Otherwise, they’re flat. Listless even when she focuses. A little dead on a bad day, he thinks. He can’t blame her: Spat out of the Fade, marked with the Fade. Shit, he assumes having little chats with her mom in the Fade...Bull isn’t an arcane scholar by any means but he suspects she, as the Herald, is so open to the other side that it drains her.

And then she must lead this band of misfits. And then she must roar her validity when people doubt her.

Or poke at her soft spot. Family. Bull is not an idiot, he understands the differences between family here and what he’s known, but it’s still alien to him sometimes. She was crystal clear about it, and while there was something off-putting about her calling him so silently with just a finger (and yet he’d gone, remember, he’d gone to her), heard her loud and clear, her with her snowdrift hair and unnerving eyes and tense shoulders.

Honeysuckle. Bull thinks she might also do well with peppermint. Sharp, clean, steady. But he’s only known her a few days, with those days separated by a few weeks, and people come in layers.

Perhaps, if she was honest in that he should ask, she’ll let him do so after each of hers. Figure out how she ticked.


	4. To Each

On the way back to Haven, Kimani can close her eyes and be, once again, a year into a future where the Fade swallowed the sky and everyone— _everyone_ —died.

That is what happens if she fails. She can feel the rough and dry of Leliana’s paper skin, drained of life while the spymaster lived still. She sees her people with red lyrium clouds around their heads, the red flashing like rubies between their teeth, in the whites of their eyes.

That would be everyone if she dies too soon.

 _Keep it in your mind but keep it off your tongue, and far from your heart._ Her mother’s words, long ago.

Yes. Kimani commits that dismal future to memory, and locks it away. She can’t do the same for the way time travel makes her feel.

 _Bigger picture_. She says this, to herself. Then, Bull joins in.

“Come on, Boss. Talk.”

Redcliffe fades in the distance behind them, but the Fade still screams at her from that future possibility, a steady note in her head that wavered but did not diminish when other people spoke. Cassandra is silent to her left, Dorian surely working through the kinks of their adventure somewhere deep in his own belly as the Seeker watches him from the corner of her eye. Behind them, the mages. When Bull appears beside her mount, he lay a hand on its mane for a moment, and it bends to him.

“About what?” She’s surprised he speaks. Happy, even. So many days on the road and all he did was watch, observe, often silent. It drove her crazy. In her head, if he was talking to her he wasn’t snooping. “About how I, an apostate, just conscripted mages? No. I won’t be talking about that.” Her horse throws its head, and Bull folds his arms.

“Not that, Boss. You look pale. Unfocused. Do you need anything, is what I’m really asking.”

Kimani shakes her head, but she doesn’t meet his eye.Timetravel didn’t agree with her; the residue of it radiates through her skin, cramping, burning. She swallows once and feels it echo painfully into her stomach. Kimani’s back muscles clench intermittently from the reverb of all that power assaulting her like a stampede; the soles of her feet buzz. Her teeth ache. And she could stand all of these discomforts if the Spirits, for once, blessed her and made the screaming stop.

She must be leaning or paling or frowning too deeply, because after a moment the screams curl around a worried Cassandra’s  _Herald?_  And then Bull’s,  _Where’s that other mage? Dorian!_  While lights dance before her eyes, cajoling her off balance.

It’s only then that she realizes the sensation is familiar, even if the screaming isn’t.

Her first Dream, the first time she reached out and shaped the Fade; when she woke up, it felt like this. Kimani groans, clenching her stomach and holding her breath before spitting into the grass.  When she opens her eyes, Dorian looks up at her, his hand firm on her thigh.

“I am alright.” She says shakily, setting her hand over his on her leg. “Just getting hit late.  _You_  look well,” she scrunches her nose at him, and he smiles his pretty smile. Cassandra says to watch him, and she will, but goodness. If not for him, she’d be a puddle of future mush.

“Of course I do, my dear. And for all of your wooziness you are still a vision. Deep breaths now.” He pats her knee and speaks for the rest of them when he says, “She’ll be fine. Keep the big one near in case she decides an impromptu nap is in order.”

This is only the beginning of a procession, and each time she holds herself rigid on her horse, clenching her thighs, stomach, teeth until it passes. The wad of elfroot in her jaw only grows larger, gummier, bitterer as old matter mixes with new stalks. But the screaming fades a bit more with each wave: her body is working it out. She feels Cassandra’s anxiety but not Bull’s, though he keeps her in his sights until Haven.

...

 

For Bull, Redcliffe was weird. Freaky. Beyond him. That the evil there was defeated and the mages acquired is enough. It should cease to be an issue. There will be bigger ones to come. The Herald lingers, and it worries him, because he’s seen better men die from such tarrying. Killed, from staying past their due. What her body does, the clenching and grunting that she endures with a stony countenance, troubles him less, but not by much. The green mark in her palm crackles like lightning and it amazes him that this isn’t what pains her. 

But honestly, it is all weird shit.

Back in Haven, Bull finds Kimani sitting with Solas outside of her small cabin and rolls his eye. He is tepid towards the condescending elf at best, but Solas is the mage that the boss seems to like most. Even Vivienne would be a better choice but no; she sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the bald apostate. Solas speaks rapidly in low tones and she listens intently, a green glow in her open hand.

The wrong hand.

Her fingers flex around the magic, rolling it in her fingers. Solas says something and she nods, and the green turns to red as she cups fire in her palm. They look peaceful, in-sync, so much so that the elf keeps his smile steady as he looks up, seeing Bull. He can read Solas’ lips as he speaks to Kimani:  _Someone else requires your attention._ Immediately her gaze flicks to Bull and her eyes are adrenaline-bright in the same way they had been on the Storm Coast, and unlike how he’d seen them since.

“Iron Bull,” Solas murmurs as he walks past, but Kimani is standing up and coming towards him and so Bull puts the elf out of his mind. Between her too-heavy coat and whatever arcane things she’d been speaking of, her pretty brown skin is flushed in the cheeks. She glows from her sweet-smelling lotions, a mix between something earthy and some flower: not honeysuckle today.

“Hi, what did you need, Bull?” She beckons for him to follow, and he matches her painfully slow stroll.

“Just checking up on you. You feeling alright?”

“I’m fine. Thanks in part to you, I suppose. I didn’t have time to feel poorly with all your questions.” 

Initially on the road back, Bull had wanted to gauge her voice because it held more intricacies than her face, and because she couldn’t linger so much if he pulled her away from her thoughts. Redcliffe in any form could not be a topic, and she was evasive on most anything but her childhood. It turned out she had many cousins, none of which were model influences, and he hung to her words; the Herald could run the living shit out of her mouth.

“I do what I can,” he shrugs off her thanks and his own thoughts. “Where are we going?” 

The sun was high and shining down enough warmth to melt the snow if it gave just a bit more gusto. She fishes a flask out of her coat-pocket, drinks deeply from it before passing it to him. He sniffs it first: just wine, but hot as he drinks. He’d say she drinks it solely for warmth, but that’s what tea was for.

“Just walking. I wonder. Do you think of me as  _bas_   _saarebas_? In the letter—“she slides a hand over the curve of her rear into her back pocket, what he assumes is the missive pulled out between two fingers—“ they use that term instead of “mage,” though the rest of the letter’s in the common tongue.” Her Qunlat’s not bad, but it’s been weeks since he gave her that letter. He begins to wonder if Solas has seen it, but remembers to answer before the silence condemns him.

“I think magic is dangerous,” he says slowly, carefully, “and I think you’re dangerous, just like I’m dangerous. Or…Cassandra, Cullen, Solas...but mostly me.”

She smiles a bit but her focus is elsewhere, almost as though she hadn’t been waiting for an answer. He can only imagine how much she lives in her head.

Bull squeezes her shoulder. “Listen, Boss. I think you’re good. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.  _Saarebas_  is just Qunari. And I am Qunari, but I try to give individuals more of a chance.”

“Good enough.” She looks at him when she says it, but she’s gone, thinking of something he can’t follow. Then just as suddenly, she’s back. “You know, I saw you there. In the future.” 

One beat passes, then two, as he waits for her to elaborate, but she only plays with her flask until he asks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I won’t tell you because it’s frightening. But you were there. I saw you die.” The Herald drinks her wine.

“I thought you weren’t telling.” The flask is small and almost done, staining her lips red no matter how she snakes her tongue over them. It has him licking his own, though she was telling him strange things. Bull’s known death in part, felt it on his skin. He thinks his death in a future ran by mages was something he didn’t want to imagine.

“That’s not the frightening part...If you’d like to know, I suppose I can tell you.”

“I think I’ll pass. We kill this Elder One, that future doesn’t matter.” 

She gives him a look that says  _oh, really?_  before smiling. It’s a pretty smile, but it unsettles Bull.

“Not to you,” she shrugs, “You didn’t see it. But it’s in my memory. The taste, the smell, the feel of it on my skin. All that noise...” She winces at the thought. “Even though it’ll never happen, it  _did_ happen. It’s real in my head. Sometimes that’s real enough.”

This sends shivers down his spine both for reasons she’s clever enough to deduce, and for those she couldn’t possibly imagine.

“I frightened you anyway, didn’t I?” She frowns apologetically. Bull waves it off.

“Nah, just...Solas would be a better speaker on the topic.”

“He is. But I guess I like talking to you. Funny.”

Bull is relieved, really, that she seemingly no longer wants to stick her boot up his ass. And he likes talking to her too, likes the way her mouths moves. He likes working her out, likes the funny accent she fights against. He thinks that she likes him for more than talking to, but would not be amenable to a fuck no matter how smooth the offer. She might walk with him and smile with him, but she has not let him in. He's already been put in his place; any move outside of his square, and he'd be set back weeks. And honestly that's fine; she's got an ass he'd love to work, long legs that'd look good around his waist, but it's fine. He gets it.

 But this Fade shit, all this magical whatsit...eh. He didn’t get it, never really had to get it, but his boss is a mage who spent her free time twirling “it” between her fingers.

“You’re gonna have to explain it,” he says finally, “For us non-magical sort. Teach me how it’s supposed to makes sense so that you can talk to me, and I can talk back a little better.”

 _This_  smile sets him back to rights and fuck him, it really shouldn't feel so nice.

…

“It is good to befriend the spy, less so to forget his savagery. Or his allegiances,” Solas tells her later, when she walks past his cottage.

“I am aware, she says, unwilling to argue the savage point, unable to argue the spy. He bids her goodnight and sweet Dreams, though she will not.

Kimani could listen to Solas speak of the Fade forever if he’d let her, and she knows that he’d never have to repeat a story. It helped, hearing someone else’s awe, fear, resistance. It helped to know that it sometimes swallowed other people whole, too.

In the future there was no sky, only the Breach split wide from horizon to horizon and yes, it screamed at her, but it whispered, too. Unintelligible, perhaps too much for the waking world’s shaky parameters. She doesn’t tell Solas this; she’s enamored with his knowledge but something about his countenance is too calm, too knowing. There are parts of his interest she doesn’t want to pique. At least not yet, not while she’s so scared and he would be so definitely not.

She sees Bull walk into the tavern with Krem before retiring to her bed. They move in sync, like a pair of burly dancers, and for a second the music inside spills into the early evening air, something upbeat and good for dancing.

Kimani isn’t surprised that Bull offers to be taught since he likes to know things, and she’s glad to teach him because as she’d suspected he is a fair man, considering. He’d make a good pupil and she’d work out her own anxieties in the meanwhile, pouring over the many glorious, harrowing sensations her gift bestowed upon her. This, Solas is less focused on in relation to his own body. Perhaps it came with being self-taught, or being elvhen, or simply a better mage. Perhaps, in explaining herself to Bull, she can learn how to be the same way.

That night when she sleeps she stays away from the Fade, but dreams that the screaming comes back with a vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	5. Handsome Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little ditty on Kimani showing Bull Fade magic.  
> (this was originally a separate drabble, also called Handsome Hands, but it's actually storyline and is referenced, so in it goes!)

“Give me your hand.”

Kimani’s eyes are closed, but she knows that Bull been watching her for some time. She weaves fadestuff through her fingers like yarn threads, that energy crawling over her in pinpricks. Her body is so very light now, unburdened by anything but what lived in her palms. Not quite flying, but simply floating along.

When there are no heavy Qunari hands in hers after a moment, she opens her eyes. Bull looks warily down at her, cross-legged on the ground. Her coat is bulky around her, her hands close together; one could miss what she was doing if they weren’t looking. She knows that he is often looking at her.

“Have you changed your mind?” Their agreement is to teach him, but they’ve yet to begin.

“Looks weird,” he huffs, but hunkers down in front of her, blocking the sun’s warmth. She thinks he’s often in pain, the way he tries to hide his stiffness, but he keeps it to himself. Kimani doubts he’s ever let mages touch his aches with magic (Dalish, apparently, is not a mage). They can work up to that.

“It is weird.” She nods, willing the threads of fadestuff into a ball to hover over flattened palms pressed side-to-side. She holds the ball out to him. Grumbling, Bull sets one large hand over the ball, and she scrapes her nails across his palm to make him jump. Kimani giggles. He'll have to learn that none of his tension is good with magic, even if he can’t cast himself. He shoots her a warning look and she admonishes him with her own, smiling still.  _Who is the teacher?_  Bull purses his lips and sighs hard through his nose, but he doesn't leave.

“This feels…like resistance. But soft?” He says when he settles, won’t let her read him. She doesn’t need him an open book, can follow him vaguely enough. It only matters that he will let her go on.

“Is it warm, or cold?”

“Neither. Just a pressing.”

“Aha.” Kimani grunts a little as she pulls from her gut and the green grows larger, slowing rising up through his parted fingers. “This is just fadestuff, just what we can call over to this side of the Veil. That’s not the proper name. I’m not sure it’s got one. But this can become fire, ice, lightning, impetus for the dead. A sword. I like it like this, raw and pliable and just enough. As good as it gets without jumping into the Fade yourself.”

“Do all mages feel this…you sound smitten, Boss.” He’s watching the fadestuff spill over his hand, keep very still. He’s only had magic shot at him, maybe. Makes sense.

“I should be fond of it, I think, if we’re to live together so intimately.”  _And it’s been a friend to me, these past twenty years._ But that might be too much for him.

When he doesn’t speak she slips her unmarked hand from under his, running her fingers over his knuckles and wrist, letting the fadestuff lick him in her wake. His hand is cracked and gnarled, more callous than palm and more bruise than knuckles. He keeps his nails clipped short and the ends are still ragged. She taps each one.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, The Iron Bull.”

“That this is most like at the rifts. Not the shoot-y streaks. Like what hovers around on the ground. That shit tries to trip me up.”

“Very good. It’s aggressive because it doesn’t really belong here. That comes straight from the Fade.” 

Bull's two nubbed fingers twitch when she lets the magic touch them, and he swallows a gasp.

Kimani begins to pull away. “Okay.”

“Not so bad without all the nug-fucking demons.” He mutters, flexing so his fingers brush her.

 Kimani shakes her head, withdrawing her magic fully, and his hand is an even starker gray between her brown ones. She turns it over so she can see the callouses she’d felt: thick and dark and patchy. She strokes the soft spots: the pads of his fingers, the valleys of his life lines, and the base of his wrist where veins jump out to greet her. Then she lays her unmarked hand in his, pressing their palms together. She’s never thought she had small hands. She should be careful.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” Bull’s thumb drags rough over the back of her hand, and she looks at him. He can make his voice so gentle that  sometimes she forgets who she’s talking to. He holds her gaze with an eye that dances from grey to green, seemingly at will.

The urge to reach out and trace the jutting angles of his face—his strong, heroic jaw, the engraving in his eyepatch, even the horns—is sudden, and lingers for more than a few heartbeats. But she’s already withdrawn her magic and though he is much less tense than when they began, he would not let her venture again so soon.

“I’m thinking that my hands are much nicer than yours,” she says, raising a cheeky eyebrow, “and you should definitely ask to borrow some of my creams.”

Bull laughs deep and from the belly, calls her a fucking plush-handed mage, and after a moment, they drift apart. Kimani goes back to floating on her own.


	6. Many Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As we know, the Inquisitor (Kimani) closes the Breach and fights the baddies, meets Coryphydoodle.
> 
> I guess these are more the in-between moments of "In Your Heart Shall Burn," rendered in 6 parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is me trying to work through "In Your Heart Shall Burn," WITHOUT basically giving a transcription of the mission/cut scenes because while I am writing within the storyline, I still want it to feel a little new. Plus, this worked better than trying to include this part in flashback or something. 
> 
> Hopefully this chapter feels a little fresh, do let me know what you think. :)

The sky shows many faces in lieu of a proper warning, Kimani thinks bitterly long after. So many days of not knowing.

First, it twists and softens into a muted gray as it snows. Kimani is happy because it’s a smidge warmer than usual, and warmer still by Varric’s blazing fire. He doesn’t think the hair came from the Conclave, because storytellers make a trade of seeing past things too obvious, too convenient.

“That it happened at the Conclave not interesting enough for you, Varric?” If this was all over after she sealed the Breach, then they didn’t need to know more than they already did. She wouldn’t be needed. She could walk away more or less intact.

“Doesn’t quite fit in my narrative, let’s say.” His voice is one she’d like to listen to if she couldn’t see the mischief in his eyes. It’s disarming. She wishes she could be disarmed, but the sky is open, her hand is open. But she lets Varric spin tales of his own, lets him fabricate his past to answer her questions. Even as the snow lets up and his fire makes her too warm, she can hear herself say  _tell me more_. This Dwarf as seen more of her teeth than anyone, she wagers. Kimani asks what he’ll do when this is all over.

“I think you’re very optimistic, Herald. But if we’re speculating…”

Maybe it’s silly to believe in an after, maybe this is the last straw, but she clings to the hope.

**…**

Next, the sky is just a swatch of baby blue, and it almost looks normal if Kimani doesn’t turn her head towards the eerie green of the Breach. Naturally she can’t help it. She’s always checking to see if it hadn’t just decided to close on its own.

She finally spars with Krem just to see what Cassandra’s lessons have taught her, and is knocked on her ass. There are a few who snicker and Krem blushes a little, but she waves him closer and demands him tell her how she’d done.

“Tell it bare, Krem.” 

He swallows.

“Quick on your feet, Your Worship. And your footwork is improved, but…you still push like some brawling stonemason at a bar.” The poor boy frowns when there are more titters; Kimani eyes them all before turning back to Krem, to whom she smiles.

“That’s as bare as it gets, but I don’t remember pushing you.” Krem grins.

“I mean the—your center. Very brawly, too loose. You’ll want to keep that aggression but focus your movements. Remember how you twirl that stave isn’t how you whip a sword; put more focus in your swing. Make it steady.”

“And your hands.” Cullen comes up from where more recruits hack at each other. “Your hold must be sure, but you mustn’t grip too hard.” He draws his own sword, places his hands on its grip. She still watches Cullen with his men when she’s waiting for the Seeker (who must stall, at least partially, on purpose), because of course he’s good at his job. He always salutes her, but keeps his distance everywhere but the war room. Cassandra thinks it’s childish the way she shuns him, but the Templars and the Seekers aren’t so different in forgetting magic is more than just something to subdue. Her Seeker is just far more diplomatic.

Cullen waits for her to respond, or not, his brow a bit creased and a small smile rounding one cheek; it renders his face both tired and acutely hopeful. Krem looks between them, eyebrows raised.

Perhaps everyone cannot be Cassandra. And she is the Herald. He is her Commander.

Kimani unsheathes her sword, mimics Cullen’s position. “I’m sure I look silly. Would you help?” And Cullen actually sighs with relief, looking to the sky, only he doesn’t spare a glance to the green glow.

Too hopeful. Or maybe he’s just sick of it. Even if Kimani were to feel the same, the damn thing calls to her anyway.

…

 

The sickly green spread across the sky comes about more as an eruption than a wash, a pulsing, crackling storm all too familiar to her. It’s fleeting; there’s a bright light, a mighty  _push_ , and then nothing. Kimani is immediately jostled by multiple hands—Seeker, Apostate, Commander—as the mages at her back cheer, shaking their staves at where the Breach used to be.  _Done._

It felt  _good_. Not just to have the Breach closed, but the closing  _of_  the Breach. Her adrenaline is so high it shrieks in her ears; it was only as she came down that she felt the routine pain in her joints, albeit intensified.

Still. It has never felt good in the midst of sealing a rift before. Kimani chooses to take it as a good sign.

“Well done, Boss.” Bull nods to the Commander as Cullen steps away. He nudges her shoulder.

“Thank you, Thank you, Big’un.” She taps loose fists playfully against his belly, grinning.  _Done._  Bull watches her, smiling quizzically.

“So…are you gonna ask me, or what?” 

It takes her a moment to remember.

“Oh, yes!” She’d bid him watch as she closed the Breach. Not to watch the Breach itself but to watch her and the other mages, to see if he could follow better what she did. Bull is a fine student, slow and meticulous and determined. 

Kimani stands back, raising her arms. “Well?”

“I saw the pull on your part. That thing pulls you mostly…your arm raises without you. But then the Breach pushes.”

“And how did you tell?”

“I felt it.” 

She makes a face; not quite the answer she wants.

“Because this one is strong, I’m certain everyone felt it. But if you hadn’t?”

“The mages. They were bracing themselves. And you walked forward as though something were pushing you back. But it wasn’t the mark.”

“Thus?”

“The Breach and the mark are fighting each other; maybe it’s not a key.” 

Kimani laughs, clapping.

“Very good. I like to call it a hammer.” She sees Cassandra out of the corner of her vision, waiting, and slaps Bull on the arm. “Go ahead and be smug about it, Big’un. I’ll see you later.” She moves away but he catches her hand, swiping his thumb a few times across her knuckles.

“You did well, Boss.”

“I  _did_. Let’s hope this is the end of it.”

Later she’s barely through a weak mug of wine– everyone’s dancing underneath the stars and the eerie “scar” left on the sky– when they see the army over the hill.

…

A dancing red face as hellfire damns Haven, reaching into the stars, it seems, for more kindling and finding none. Kimani’s never seen fire so hungry, not even when her mother’s house burned to ash. That had been her fault, just like this was.

_Not now._

After downing her last lyrium potion she buries the glass in some poor sod’s eye, drawing her sword. She tries to keep from clutching the sword too tight, as Cullen advised, feels her palms burn on the reflex after each kill. It’s difficult, keeping her lessons in her mind’s eye so she may move with them, and, while she tries, Cassandra and Bull keep her alive until she starts torching Templars again.

Kimani can tell the difference between her fire and what blazes around them, and she makes sure these twisted, corrupted Templars can as well. Most of them don’t even have the humanity to scream as they fall; this helps her kill them. And kill them. And kill them.

And still, it isn’t enough.

 _Thoughts on martyrdom_ : No one thinks it’s a good idea, even if they agree to it. Bravery has its levels. All who choose to die for causes bigger than themselves have ulterior motives. Kimani wishes she knew hers. As she turns to leave the survivors to a brighter fate she only knows she exhausted the reservoir of her bravery somewhere between the first and second trebuchets. She sees the future in a flash of untampered fear, and hopes.

 _Thoughts on trying to get the fucking trebuchet in place_ : That is  _not a dragon_.

“ _Go_ ,” Kimani bellows as it torpedoes towards them, cutting her off from her squad with a beat of its great wings. There is something wrong with the beast but it will kill her despite its flaws, and she can’t tear her eyes away from it. It looks more like a corpse than the great winged beasts of the books. It is going to eat her.

“The Pretender.” 

She spins, narrowing her eyes at what was once a man. That much she sees in the pieces of his face, and it’s enough to know that the dragon will not eat her;  _he_  means to draw this out. She’ll have to scream her death before the end.  _Sorry, mama._

The ball in his hand is familiar, but she can’t say from where.

“You will kneel.” The once-man says. Kimani will scream until her throat gives out, she’ll rage against the inevitable, but she’d not lose all of her dignity this day. It seems out of place to laugh at his declarations.

Instead she spits bloody at the feet of this creature who, she’ll soon realize, would dare be a god.

…

 

It is midnight blue over the refugees, the swirling deep peppered with white, dying stars that nearly obscure Breach’s cyan scar. There are spatters of violet across that scar every so often; Bull looks at them instead of in the direction they’d come, as Cassandra does. There is no point in waiting on a dead woman.

He seems to befriend a lot of martyrs, is chums with a lot of corpses. Realistically, there won’t even be anything left of her for funeral rites. He’ll have to honor her some other way.

By sunrise, they’ll need to move forward. Those who needed a bit more time to die would do so in the night. Anyone else would have to grit their teeth and press on.

Krem oscillates between sleeping and looking blearily in Cassandra’s direction, hopeful. The rest all settle in a pile, waiting. Bull is happy that her men are alright. He wills it outweigh the sadness threatening to spill up and out of him like bile.

But then the Herald is there, in the snow.

…

 

Sunrise is an ever-moving assortment of oranges streaked with pink against an in-between powder-blue. Sunrises rarely change. They’re always beautiful.

From finding the survivors to finding Skyhold, Kimani learns three things:

1.    Solas is not exactly who he claims to be, but with his lies come Skyhold. She doesn’t judge him just yet, because he’s still the most familiar thing to her in the Frostbacks.

2.    She is not Andrastian but she can’t help but to respect that because these people believe so strongly, they follow  _her._  Before, she understood that the mark, as a thing of wonder, was enough. But now Haven is gone. Cassandra or Leliana should be at the helm and yet, even they follow her, who has no idea where she’s going. Not even after they’ve set foot on Skyhold’s abandoned grounds.

3.    There’s a bruise where Corypheus held her, ringing her wrist like a bracelet. There are places along her back that stab when she stretches because he threw her against the trebuchet. When she sleeps she can hear him say _, Beg that I succeed_. In this Kimani learns that she’s at least a little brave; she welcomes the words over and over, and over again, until she wakes up hearing them in her own voice.

“Very good.” Bull murmurs to her as Skyhold’s entrance comes into view. His arm snakes around her, pulling her close for a moment. “On this, on the whole not dying thing. You know.”Kimani smiles, reaches down to scratch her nails lightly against his palm before he releases her.

“I do my best, Big’un. Take notes.”

“Another test?”

“You bet your gray ass.”

When they finally step foot in Skyhold it’s on the cusp of dawn, and the morning is made more beautiful by the fact that their whole party lifts their voices to cheer the sun into the sky.


	7. After-Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani is overwhelmed, what with the whole Haven burning to the ground and being named leader of a movement, so she goes to the Hinterlands to punch demons. And be contrary. And cry.
> 
> It works?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much drama from Haven to Skyhold, I always wonder how the newly-minted Inquisitors deal.
> 
> Enter: Low-Key Adrenaline Junkie Kimani.

Power, the new Inquisitor learns, is an undoing force.

The Anchor is no less a mystery for Corypheus’ elaborations. It does not belong to her, and yet here it is, blotting out her life lines to make space for void. If she looks into it too long, she feels as though she’s falling. And it hurts more now. Kimani remembers how it had burned when Corypheus tried to take it back, how her vision had blackened until his rancid breath brought her to.

She finds biting at her wrist helps distract from the pain, but she only does this in her room: once, she’d forgotten herself in the library. Dorian napped at her side, snoring, but his eyes were open when she looked over at him, teeth deep in her skin. He’d said nothing just as he promised to say nothing of her Dreaming, which he’d casually brought up by describing a “friend” of his in Tevinter. She wonders if he is truly so kind, or if this is another symptom of her power.

Kimani’s true power is her magic, and the same who call her Andraste’s Herald have interesting things to say about the mages in their midst. But it’s all she has, and it is mighty.  _I could swallow you up in flames before you finished my name_ , she thinks as she hears a group of builders gripe about the once-rebel mages.  _But I don’t._

In the Circle, she could do nothing about this urge. On the run, too, she must hold back her rage. But a missive crosses her desk concerning a rift opened in some Hinterland valley, and she is the only one that can bring it to heel. Where her excitement at the prospect should strike her odd, there is only the growing need to  _go_. No one can tell her no, even if it were feasible.

So she’ll find some release in ripping demons apart, gather peace where she can.

***

 

“Hey, hey  _hey_!” 

Kimani ignores Bull’s bellows as she lunges at a very large, lone demon, both hands casting as she shoulders a swipe of its claws and gives it the old one-two; first punch in the belly, second in the chest. She shocks it still so she can keep her head.

The demon is neither a Fearling nor a Terror, and certainly nothing like Rage. A scout of some kind then, though it is  _huge_ , its energy a violent wave as it shifted to accommodate its new plane of existence.

Kimani’s pulse hammers in her ears as she curls her fingers around the demon’s essence, pulling the prize from its chest cavity just as Bull yanks her away from the now very dead corpse.

“What was that, Boss?” He turns her to face him, shaking her. Just to fuck with him, she shakes the essence in his face. Essence in flux is rare; she sees Bull note how she’s got the hand covered in demon gook also writhing with fadestuff.

“A hunch.” She’s got to keep the Fade around it, like a preserver, until they get a glass vial. Glass, of all things, to keep the essence of a demon alive. “This one was still trying to adjust. That could be interesting.” She tells Bull when he cocks his head; there hadn’t been much time, between her hiding and teaching herself, to teach him. Not since Haven. She hadn’t wanted to feel, if she were honest.

Solas looks surprised but very much on board with wherever the hunch took her. He hands her the vial as Bull peels away shredded leather; between the three of them the wound is bandaged enough to get her through closing this rift. Kimani hums along its buzz.  Both she and Solas lean into the feel of the rift’s pulse, the tell-tale whipping sound of wrong energy crackling like thunder, though she smiles without him.

To have something familiar—and fighting-- to subdue, something with no tongue to call her anything, something she could sing with as she conquered it— _that’s_  what she wanted. That’s all.

Haven had not been a victory; Corypheus had just talked too much for his own good.

That familiar green focuses her eye as she runs, feeling freer than she’s felt since the Circles fell and flying, really, into the ravine. The wraiths that come from the rift are easy to cast out, the hooded bastards aren’t, but she dips and dodges and cuts them down, too.

Her adrenaline rushes so loudly in her ears that she doesn’t hear Bull when he yells for her this time.

A Terror demon slips up through the cracks in the earth, the least of her favorites. Almost giddily it knocks her off her feet and onto her leg at a wrong angle, forcing it to bend. The pain of it shoots lightning up her hip, a bright, biting surge.

“Fucking  _shit_!” A flash of rage bursts so  _red_ behind her eyes, swallowing the pastels of her adrenaline high, and she hurls her staff at the terror demon as Bull’s ax, too, takes a swing at it. She sees the blade-end of her stave sink into the demon while top half is sliced away with one of its arms. Bull throws her a bewildered look before the wounded Terror pulls his attention.

There are always at least two of those particular fuckers and, on cue, the second hops out of the ground in front of her. Solas and Cole are too far away and dealing with a large rage demon to be of any help, but she remembers her lyrium. Scrambling, Kimani kicks the potion back and casts bare-handed, setting the Terror on fire and cursing in every language she half-knows as she rolls away. 

Her leg screams at her but the Anchor’s pull is louder, so she rolls until she has a good visual on the rift and gets to work. This rift is defiant to the last, and it throws her head back against the soft ground as it accepts defeat and snaps shut.

The pastels dance in her eyes again at the thrill, threading through the throbbing red pain that swells with her sighs.

There’s a silence as her party looks from the still-burning Terror to their Inquisitor, whose hands are still lit and scorching the grass as she grips it.

“What the actual  _fuck_?!” Bull gestures wildly between her and the two ruined demons. “What made you throw the  _magic staff_? It’s not a damn harpoon!”

“But it hit,” She coughs, groaning. “It  _hit_ , you big fuck.”

“You…” Bull catches himself, exhales. Then he straightens, shakes some of the gore from his axe, and she sees new scars dance angry on his skin as his muscles flex “…are simply a smaller, dumber fuck.”

Solas and Cole frown, but Kimani only shrieks a peal of laughter at him.  _Tuh_.

“Let’s get out of here before you find more wrong things to chuck at even wronger things.” He grumbles, rolling his neck. 

She simply lifts her arms to him like a child. 

“The smaller fuck needs a lift.” 

But he’s got her snug against his chest before she can finish speaking. She lays her head on his shoulder and he says nothing, jaw working.

It doesn’t matter what any of them think; she is giddy and in pain and bright with adrenaline, awash in her and Bull’s sweat and the humid valley air. She’s come for what she wanted.

…

 

Dusk in the Hinterlands makes her want to stay here forever, get lost in the hills, the caves. Never return to Skyhold. Never be called Inquisitor again..

Kimani hums in the dark, taking a moment to find the song she’s looking for. Her fingers tap against each other in muted claps, laying out the beat as she stands, hissing at her tender leg wrapped with a poultice that plugs her nose with its stench. She’s thankful that the leg did not bend to break; the only evidence of her recklessness to follow her back to Skyhold lay across her shoulder and stung like shit. Like many other things, no one else need know. Like most, they would figure it out anyway.

The song she hums is the only Rivaini song she knows, or remembers. Her hands hold the beat steady and her feet step the steps as though she’s danced it every day of her life. The song, the beat are all played softly for Solas’ sake. She is not sure if Cole sleeps.

“You need to get off that leg,” Bull’s voice is only just louder than her own as he comes out from the trees before his hands finish buckling his belt.

“Don’t interrupt me,” she says swaying in the dark. “I’m praying.”

A rebuttal catches in his cavernous throat, before he sputters, “What?” Kimani only lifts her arms above her head, fingertips straining towards the moon and eyes shut tight against the shoulder pain. She bites her lip to match that bite, ignoring the disapproving sound Bull makes.

She’s only a little winded by the end, rubbing at her scalp as she opens her eyes to his narrow stare.

“Had enough? Off the leg.” As though he knows her mind, as though he can read her in the dark.

“Are you going to make me, The Iron Bull?” He could take his damned article and fall into the void. Between the moons weak glow and the shadows at his back, when Bull squares his shoulders her seems entirely too large. Her big, scary mercenary, but  _she_  was Boss.

 _When was the last time you were so ornery?_ But that’s not she wants either, damn her conscience.

“I’m not dead.” She raises her voice slightly, and Bull blinks. “I. Am not. Dead. Barely injured. Yes I was reckless, but  _you_  fight half naked and have more scars than good skin. Not dead.” She pats herself to confirm her corporeality. “Will live to fight whatever another day. So fuck off, for  _fuck’s_ sake.” She turns to hobble back to the tent she and Solas share, unsatisfied and near-tears.

Kimani wants to think that Bull has ruined it. She really wants to. On the road back to Skyhold she treats him as though he’s ruined it, so much that even Solas takes notice.

…

 

Cassandra isn’t as livid as she might have been, had she been told then entire truth of the trip, but when Kimani grimaces one too many times at her shoulder, the Seeker demands her to show. She looks over the slow-healing gashes with a frown; Kimani knows exactly what she thinks: silly mage needs better armor. Or perhaps, just “silly mage.” And in this instance, maybe she isn’t so wrong.

“That wound will leave scars,” Cassandra sighs, sitting across from Kimani as she dusts sand over missives. She has returned to a room far prettier, with what seemed like miles of thick rug and unnaturally soft bedspreads embroidered in gold. Josephine has even added a couch. Why she needs two couches, Kimani doesn’t know.

“Is that all you’ll say?  _That wound will leave scars_.” She tucks a white tuft of hair behind her ear; she hasn’t cut it since Haven, and it reaches for the clouds in stubby, thick tendrils, still too short to stay properly tucked, but longer than she’s used to.

“Would you like for me to reprimand you further? I suspect you realize you only have so much body to mar and will wear better armor. Unless you wish to rival The Iron Bull.”

“I don’t. You know I brought him to spare me a lecture from you, and got it anyway.”

“Your punishment for leaving me behind.” The Seeker smiles. At the edge of the desk, Cassandra has left a book. “Though, I wouldn’t have been able to carry you quite as far as him.”

“How…spirits.”

“You think I don’t know what happened, as though Leliana does not know what happened. We do not let powerful people simply roam the Hinterlands. Nor do I let upset friends run about un-checked.” Cassandra raises and eyebrow. “You will be more careful. And you will read.”

“I will.”

“You  _will_.”

…

 

Power is an undoing force. Kimani changes her wound’s dressing in a large mirror that also appeared in her rooms when she was gone. The wound is ugly, and it will scar ugly; she turns her back to the mirror, looks over her shoulder to see the rest of it. The lacerations come together in a point under her left shoulder blade and the skin flakes horribly, as it tends to do with demon wounds. 

The rest of her back is home to the fading bruises from being thrown by Corypheus and the scattered pale marks of long-healed injuries. Stretch marks start beneath her ribs and reach under her breaches until they disappear over her knees. In the small of her back is the faded tattoo of a sun that looks nothing like her matrilineal sigils, though she’d tried. This new piece would fit amongst a landscape of accidents. She brushes the dry heat of the anchor over her shoulder anyway, as though it would make the scratches disappear.

Kimani spends a while looking back at herself in the mirror, rolling her shoulders to watch the tender skin blush red in irritation. She’d gotten what she wanted, she’d conquered  _something_ , at least, in the Hinterlands; something familiar and doable and  _able_  to be conquered. Nothing else is so certain.

It is neither peace nor courage she gathers in her reflection, but it is useful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! Comments, critique, questions: all are love and light. :)


	8. Hypodermic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly just Bull freaking out about being stuck on his freaky mage boss.  
> (this was a separate fic, also called Hypodermic, that makes more sense placed within the story)

Under his skin; she must have magicked her way there.

“Morning, Big’un,” she says, still bleary-eyed and sleep-creased, hair frizzed under the pale blue scarf that, he still can’t believe this shit, made it through Haven in her pocket. It’s larger than he thought, the loose tail caught in a snag on her hip, the flowers scattered across it proudly fraying in the petals. The thing is old and faded and warm, must: she hates the cold almost as much as she hates Corypheus. She’d said as much.

“This isn’t your route.” He tilts his head in greeting. Skyhold is massive and they often walk in two seemingly separate mornings, the shadow of the other so far in the distance it might be a mirage.

“You like chocolate?” She holds up two steaming mugs and smiles a little when he takes the emptier cup, knowing full well she’d started drinking from it. He figures even if he likes it, she likes it more. “This is my fortress. All the routes are mine. I should implement put a tax.” She leans against him. “How much would you pay?”

“A smallish fortune if I get chocolate every morning.” 

She scoffs. “Don’t get comfortable. I dreamt about you last night.” 

He looks down at her, sees her honey eyes roll up to him almost bored, and he bites the inside of his jaw. “Was I dead?” A slow blink. “How nice.”

“It was in Haven, so nothing even remotely foretelling. Not that I can do that. I  _can’t_ do that.” She nudges the question from his face. “But when people die in your dreams, you either hate them or miss them.”

“I don’t suppose you bring chocolate to Cullen when you dream of his corpse.”

“I don’t hate Cullen. I just sometimes want to hit him. What?” She frowns when he laughs. “I  _don’t_ hate him. He helped me with my sword—“

“Good lot of help it was—“

“-- And we played chess once. He almost let me win until he saw it pissed me off. I don’t hate him.” She looks out at the sunrise, and the breeze blows so he can smell the sharp fragrance of her hair oil. It reminds him of something.

“So you miss me. Morbid.”

“Right. But how did you guess?”

“Last time you saw me anywhere weird, I died. So that’s the only guess I got.”

“From what I hear, I’m surprised you didn’t think anything more…nefarious.”

“Sex is more nefarious than death? Fucking Andrastians.” But she’s not Andrastian. She’s never actually said it, but her hands do. He realizes they haven’t had a lesson in some time. “But you wouldn’t be bringing me hot cocoa if you’d had a sex dream about me.” Her brow furrows sharply as she decides whether or not to follow up. Curiosity gets the better of her. Or maybe she’s not as taken aback she makes out to be.

“What would I do?” 

He regards her over the mug as he takes a deep draught. There’s two different kinds of chocolate in this batch and it’s fucking delicious.

“You specifically? Run your morning route instead of walk it. Go hide with Dorian and douse the flames with the most boring of arcane. Handle the need yourself, as best you could. Anything but bring it to me.” 

Even from her he expects a sputter, or the small, mad dash of shock that’s dragged scarlet blushes across many a face due to his bluntness. Instead she smooths the wrinkles from her forehead and huffs, looking away at something distant, secret; he doesn’t want to know, not yet.

“I haven’t seen you since we got back.” 

Conversely, Bull’s watched her in passing, measuring the dip in her step from her hurt leg until she’s walking without it. How she’d danced about and trotted her horse in the Hinterlands, he doesn’t know. But he has seen her even if she’d avoided him, her embarrassment covert.

“That was your choice. I understand it.” He takes another drink of chocolate.

“But do you  _like_  it.” 

It’s funny, because by now she knows he won’t answer this sort of question.

“How’s the wound?”

 A thoughtful pause from her before she pulls the scarf loose, undoing her coat and hissing at cold air on her skin as her nightshirt slides down her arm. Purple and ragged, the three jagged lacerations drag up her chest and over her shoulder. Morning light catches the sheen of whatever salve she dresses it with, trailing an iridescent luster onto the curve of her breast. It’ll take a while to heal, for the demon’s residue to be swallowed by her own light (this is how she’d explained it, after Haven, when looking over the wounds of others. Bull’s just taken it in).

“Itchy.” Kimani runs her fingers around the perimeter, pressing so as not to scratch.

“That was still a dumb move.” 

Those same fingers find one of the older scars on his stomach and he nearly shudders when she presses there, too. She doesn’t have to speak; he can hear her in his head.  _Tell me how smart this move was._

Bull prefers her talking, but falling into silence gives him a chance to regain himself. It’s some kind of magic. It has to be. He’s seen more beautiful people with prettier excuses to come his way and never fluttered so. He doesn’t get it. It’s some mage shit.

But there’s nothing magical in how she demands his cup, empty by daybreak proper, stacking it atop her own after re-bundling herself. Nothing magical in the  _Bye, Big’un_  she leaves him with, eyes a bit brighter now, her walk spritelier. 

Under his skin. He feels the press of her fingers, the faint edge of her nails, all day. He feels it everywhere.


	9. Celestial Bodies, pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani takes precautions against Dreaming before marching on Adamant, and ends up in the Fade anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adamant is weird.

There are only four ingredients to  _nesomni,_ not counting the water used to mix. Kimani grows three of them herself. She rests on her haunches while pulling skullcap, cutting away what she doesn’t need and inspecting the fat roots that she does. These are tossed into her garden basket after a thorough wiping.

“So this is where it all starts?” Dorian crouches down next to her. He smells warm, of cinnamon perhaps, and rubs a circle into her back in greeting. She nods; her little patch of dirt is fairly secluded in its corner, she’d made sure of it when choosing a space in the garden.

“It is.  _Nesomni_. My first Tevene word, actually.”

“Is there no equivalent in Rivaini?” 

Kimani shrugs. “Yes, but then my mother would have to explain a lot more than she wanted when I was young. I remember sitting in her lap the first time she showed me how to mix it and I asked her if my aunties used it too. She said no, because they weren’t like me, and Rivain was different.” Kimani nearly falls off balance trying to yank a sprig of water hyssop from its heavy pot. “When I asked why, she changed the subject. I don’t know much Rivaini, truth be told.”

“I would call it sad if it didn’t seem she very much wanted to protect you from something.”

“My mother always has her reasons.” Thousand-leaf has weak stems and snaps in whispers when she plucks it. Dorian stands to offer her his hand when she’s done, and she rises with a bit of stiffness. “Still want to watch me mix it?

“Of course, though we’ll have to settle on exactly who is sitting in whose lap.”

Once in her quarters, Kimani bids him sit on her bed as she pulls a brown bundle from the closet, unrolling it over her blankets to reveal plain sets of stone mortars and pestles. She chooses the largest set and the lone, earthenware jar, setting the rest aside. Dorian watches her intently as she moves.

“It’s not hard to make. Just takes a bit of effort in measuring. I’m making a large batch to dry.”

“For taking to Adamant?” 

She nods, spreading her tools out between them.

“I don’t usually dream on long journeys. I sleep too soundly. Even still, blood magic and demon summoning means the Veil may be thin where we’re going.” Kimani weighs skullcap root and thousand-leaf in one palm and water hyssop in the other, thinking a moment before dumping them unceremoniously into the bowl. She opens the jar and shakes a layer of grainy nutmeg over the weeds, smirking at the face Dorian makes.

“Excuse me…what?” He leans forward, scrunching his nose when she taps powder on it.

“Mhmm, you see properly. I order the seeds and grind them myself. It’s supposed to make you hallucinate if you eat too much, yet it cancels out Dreaming. It is also good in pudding.”

“But…well…”

“What were you expecting, stardust? Tongue of dragon, foot of newt?” She hisses laughter, crushing the ingredients together in quick, twisting strokes. “It is natural, what allows us access to the Fade, so the opposite must also be natural. Even lyrium comes from the ground, no?”

“But weeds, my dear? Weeds and water and  _nutmeg_?”

“Sometimes I add a pinch of sugar.” She glances slyly at him as he bursts out laughing, head thrown back.

“You are a precious gift, Inquisitor. Does Solas know about this?”

Kimani adds more of each ingredient when everything grinds down to her liking. The skullcap root is good, juicy. She’s grown it well this time, which is a feat in the Frostbacks.

“Solas doesn’t really approve, and I don’t care to debate it with him. He doesn’t like how I learned. As though I had any choice. Any more of his condescension towards my mother, and I’ll crack open his smooth little head.”

“Do invite me, next time the pair of you get together.” Dorian’s eyes watch her mix intently as she begins the painstaking task of adding water, drop by perilous drop. “For a while I thought him your teacher.”

“One day perhaps, when we’ve come out of this war alive.”

“Very much agreed. Yet you are also teacher, are you not? To the Iron Bull?”

 Kimani sees the suggestion in his sparkling eyes all too clearly and chooses to pretend she hasn’t, shrugging.

“In a fashion. I’m not the best teacher, as I’ve barely seen him since we’ve come to Skyhold.” Bull and the Chargers had only just returned from Therinfall Redoubt. She doubts she’ll get to that report, or see him properly, before they march on Adamant.

“That’s what happens when you’re the boss. But, why not show him this? Oh,” Dorian flushes a little, covering his mouth, “He is unaware.”

“I’ve only actually told Solas.  _You_  told  _me_ , which I suppose is appropriate. I plan on maintaining my silence until something else reveals it.”

“And you’re so certain it shall?” Kimani nods, dipping a finger into the brown paste for a taste. Dorian watches her intently, biting his bottom lip.

“Go on,” she offers him the bowl. “It won’t hurt you.” She waits until he swipes a nail over the top, licking tentatively.

“Bitter,” He rasps, smacking.

“You’d think the nutmeg would help. Dorian, you  _know_ this is only going to get worse. We’re fighting a magister hell-bent on sitting throne in the Black City. Hopefully we’re marching to  _stop_  blood ritual before it starts-- which, we need to talk about that one book. More blighted Tevene than I can manage.” Dorian’s still struggling with the taste, but nods with pursed lips. She can practically see him taking meticulous mental notes on the flavors, the consistency.

Kimani doesn’t truly know what to expect at Adamant. Her advisers are worried; the Venatori are bold, experimental, and devout. The  _Wardens_ , heroes, the warriors of Blight, were under their spell. If whatever magic they wrought was successful, there’d be more blood spilled than the earth could handle. Kimani thanks the spirits that Skyhold, too, is a fortress, and that her mother is far away.

She takes another taste of her concoction;  _Nesomni_ also has calming effects. Even Dorian visibly relaxes. She’d made this batch strong.

“Well,” He finally says, “Despite our luck, let’s hope you can keep- _venedhis_ , the aftertaste is worse!” Kimani takes the mortar back as he dips his finger in again, shaking her head.

“I’ve given up on luck, Dorian. Doesn’t help that I’m thrice fucked by fate, or the Maker, or however. Now, it’s all a matter of waiting for the bastard to come.”

*** * ***

She remembers the joke as she falls through the rift at Adamant. Opening that rift is only partially her idea; the Anchor is like a magnet towards the thin crack spitting green into the air. She has no warning, no time to think, but is readily equipped with all the necessary, sordid tools.

_Thrice fucked._

Dorian doesn’t fall through the rift with her so only Cole understands why she’s laughing, though even he doesn’t understand how she lands on her feet. Neither does she.

“ _Fasta_  fucking  _vass_.” Kimani looks around her at the twisted, decaying landscape. It is a strange melody of hallucinations barely taken proper form, some dead man’s palace scrounged up from shady memories. Yes, this is the Fade, the trickster god, her lying companion. Those who’ve come through with her are the only steady ghosts. Cole doesn’t stop trembling when she takes his hand, but he squeezes.

‘My dear,” Vivienne waves at their surroundings with a flourish. “Won’t you confirm?” And that settles it for Kimani; the Enchanter knows she Dreams.

“What else to call it if we are here awake?” She muses, bending to touch the cracked ground. It is a mosaic of gravestone and tile. “Yes, Enchanter. This is the Fade.” Solas is a child with sticky fingers. Cassandra, Stroud, and Hawke all stand together, glowering. And Bull, well. His energy switches between Cassandra’s and Cole’s with each breath. She can hear him much better here than she can read him in the waking world.

“The Raw Fade!” Solas breathes, waving his hand through a passing mist. Everyone does the same, marveling. Kimani curls her fingers in the sickly green fog, freezing when her hand catches. As though she’d snagged a vine, or a net. She pulls that hand to her chest, watches the mist follow. Vivienne’s gaze burns into the side of her face.

“Fuck me in half,” she whispers, feeling a sharp tug at her chest when the caught mist expands in her palm. What clings to her, what kisses her skin like a lover before biting in warning, isn’t quite the same as what she’s shown Bull as it danced over her fingertips, and different from the Fade magic Solas uses in battle. This sure pressing, cool as it slides down her boots and warm curled about her hips, is goading her. The fog in her hand presses into her palm, urging her to some unknown thing. Asking as much as the Fade could ask. She shudders.

“Such  _language_ , Inquisitor. Little Sanwa’s grown a sharp tongue.”

It is Corypheus’ voice, warped in the way of demons. She raises her eyes to the sky.

“And you’ve taken the bitter herbs; I can taste them on that sharp tongue. Poor surprise this, then, eh?” His hoarse chuckle coincides with a streak of yellow shot across the sky. She follows it’s trajectory over the Black City, their only continuous backdrop. It seemed to beckon to her as well.

“Not so bitter if you add a bit of sugar,” Kimani quips at the voice, beckoning her squad nearer. Seven of them. “I am so sorry, my friends. We’ll get out of this.” Dread starts in her toes, tingling to numb as it creeps its way up ankle, calf, thigh.

“Inquisitor, you’re pale.” Cassandra removes a gauntlet, grasps her hand. “Too warm.”

“Yet the Anchor is stable. Naturally,” Solas adds. Kimani shakes her head.

“I’m fine, Seeker.” Cassandra scowls, but nods.

“Then let us proceed, my dear,” The Enchanter’s face is tight. Now Bull, too, watches her curiously.

“Sanwa do hurry, or I’ll find you! And oh, Madame de  _Fer_ …” The demon begins its taunts as Kimani waves them along. The ground ahead blurs like a shaky mirage until their feet make contact, making this place seems more of a dream than her dreamscapes. Fearlings watch them hungrily from the thicker mists, rainbow eyes marred by warped black centers that trail their procession. These demons are weak, but many; pains unfold behind Kimani’s eyes, duller than what the Rage demon on the battlements had inflicted, but not so dull as to be ignored.

“We are not alone,” Solas murmurs. Hawke scoffs, pointing his sword at passing demons.

“Yeah, no fucking shit,” Bull growls.

“Not there,” Solas points ahead of them. As if on cue, a bright light slices through the hazy air. “There.”

Whatever it may be, the spirit wears Divine Justinia’s face like it’s the only thing it ever wanted.

…

 

Kimani doesn’t know how much time passes as they walk on, hopes they’re quick enough about it, and hopes this is the only part of the Fade made available to the Venatori, because she sees nothing near a formidable demon army in the shadows.  _A little good luck, for once?_

In the quiet moments between attacks, Kimani counts her comrades. Seven. She chants their names as part of the tick:  ** _inhale_** _Cass, Big’un, Cole, **exhale**  Enchanter, Warden, Hawke._ In the space between breaths she remembers Solas; the growing dread that he’s not so much in danger as they keeps him separated in her mind. Every so often he glances at her with sympathy, his hands never gliding over every surface he can reach.

The demon with Corypheus’ voice—the Nightmare—picks at them as they walk. That it is not actually Corypheus is comforting where it should infuriate her. They could end this  _now_.

“Sanwa, you’re doing  _so_  well. Your mother would be proud. And Masrin. Marquesa as well, one can only hope, if she’d been given leave to grow up.” Immediately, the sounds from Marquesa’s death fill the air; the distinctive thump-crackle of a Templar’s smite, the high-pitched snarl that had told them it was too late, too late for this once-girl. A twin ringing of blades unsheathed: one for sinking into Marquesa’s heart and one for her, pressed just so into the hollow of her adolescent throat.

Despair would burn the blood from her veins if she weren’t already attuned to fire; Kimani forces herself to laugh as she’s overrun with vivid images, old pain rumbling like hunger in her belly. It is all as familiar as reflection. What is less familiar is the living Fade, pressing still at her skin; it begins to finally whisper words to match the urging that soaks her body.  _You must._

But she doesn’t know what it means and it begins biting at her in frustration. Soon, she’s over-stimulated, heart roaring in her ears, sweating. A thousand rancid smells tickle so far in her nose she gags, salivating. When she swallows, she tastes it. Her hair is on end, her breasts ache; and still it implores her. Like an aggressor at her back, or a lover between her thighs.

“ _What_  must I do?” She whispers, steadying herself on ruined stone.

Before long—the Fearlings sent down to them are strays, weak, and killed quickly to avoid detection—their exit beams like a low-slung moon at the top of a craggy incline.

When the Nightmare appears, she is certain it’s known where they were all along. Can’t even laugh at the fact. Her stave is steady in her sweaty palm.

 _You must._  The Fade squeezes— _squeezes_ —her, and she claws at the air as if to throw it off her. The stuff follows her movements as it has thus far, only now she can see it gathered in her hand, almost solidifying, dancing like flame…

A latent click at the back of her mind.

Suppose.

The Divine crashes into the Nightmare and its guardian demon, erupting into a fountain of fallen stars. The lesser demon swoops down on them, screeching, scratching, spitting vile magics from its black-hole mouth. The team scatters, casting, shooting, yelling for each other as they find a rhythmic pattern of attack.

“Inquisitor!” Someone yells.

“Boss,  _stay on!_ ” Bull bellows, swinging above her head. Instead, Kimani ties her staff to her back sloppily, with shaking hands.

Suppose…

 _I don’t have time to suppose._  Kimani rakes her hands through the air, pulling from her gut like she always has when she casts, sees true Fade contort and settle into a writhing mass in her arms, some primordial offspring. She steels herself. Grits her teeth on the pullback. Throws. Watches Fade spread easy as wings and hit the Nightmare like a brick wall. Seven pairs of eyes hit her hard and fast before turning back their foe

“Shit... Do it again!” Bull calls.

“Quickly, if you would.” Vivienne rains lightning down on the Nightmare.

So she does, the force of it blurring her vision, but her body is lit, buzzing as she casts again, throwing Fade between Vivienne’s lightning and Solas’ fire. The feeling presses up through her skin in a thousand tiny pin-pricks, like she is truly growing wings. She bites back a cry when she hears the demon’s pained roar.

“You know me,” she hears herself say when the Nightmare settles ruined eyes on her. “You know this heartbeat. You couldn’t stop it then, either. Stroud,  _move_!” She casts again, throwing her body into it to the point of nearly losing her balance. She holds steady, but whatever’s spurring her on is waning; she can feel the blood from her nose roll over her lips, can taste it as she snarls it into her teeth. Kimani throws Fade once more, as hard as she can, stunning the Nightmare so that for a second, she thinks that they all have a chance.

The exit hovers above them, a dark, star-flecked sun. They make for it at her word as though they are one cohesive, massive wave.

There are snags in this flow. Kimani has facilitated death before, but she’s never decided to kill a good man until now. The Champion is a tad surly, a smidge gruff, but he had been kind enough to her. A good man. She turns his way one more time, and freezes in her tracks.

_Asshole._

“What the fuck are you waiting for? Go!” Hawke yells, but Kimani looks just behind him. It is too tall, too gangly, too white, but it is indeed Marquesa with a demon’s smile, skin split as it had been when Kimani woke to her friend possessed. When she didn’t move fast enough to stifle her scream. When she watched the Templars recoil in horror before rushing to action. Killing her.

That wasn’t entirely right, though.

 _It was me_ , Kimani thinks sadly, jerking back as someone snatches her arm, pulling her towards their escape.  _I’ll always be sorry, Mara._

“Failed a second time,” its voice is loud in her ears despite the growing distance. Hawke suddenly spins around, his sword lopping off the lesser demon’s head in one vicious stroke. Instead of falling, the head rises in the air like a specter and Kimani screams, a final rush of Fade bursting from her skin, angry and threatening to devour.

The head smiles with the same voided mouth but a different face: browner and plumper with long, braided hair strung with beads. Kind eyes that share Kimani’s shape, if not their color.

Her mother’s head winks at her before her Fade burst knocks both it and Hawke into the Nightmare demon’s feet. It’s the last thing she sees of Hawke, his body tossed like a ragdoll.

And then, all she sees is stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nesomni" is not a canonical Tevene word. I just looked up some latin for "no dreaming" I think, and tweaked it. It does match up to other dreaming terms we know, such as Somniari, which is Tevene for "dreamer."
> 
> As always, let me know what you think.


	10. Celestial Bodies pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Fade weirdness. Freakiness? Sweetness. Yeah.

_This is a surprise. Hello, my love._ Asha sits in the sand, feet in the tide. In the distance, children scream happily and adults shout half-hearted chastisements in Rivaini. Kimani sees the large bonfires, much like her family burns in Afsaana on the Rialto beaches, and yet the air is sweet in her nose.

 _Hi, mama._  Kimani thinks that she must have fainted, that the effects of  _nesomni_  were canceled out by the raw Fade because this  _is_  her mother, and they are in her mother’s dream.  _In the waking world, are you safe?_

_Yes, I’m fi- Kimani?_

Kimani nearly knocks her mother over, hugging her tight. She is always warm, almost real. Always almost real. _Patris, are you alright?_  The violet light of her mother’s protective barrier glows around them, humming softly.  _Tell me, so that we have more time._

_It’s nothing, I’ve only had a rough day. It is hard where I am, ma. But I should wake up._

As if on cue the brightness of Asha’s dream dims at the edges, and both women turn as a disembodied pair of eyes opens in thin air over the ocean, watching them almost sleepily, lazily. The Nightmare’s voice is a faint, echoing laugh. Asha tenses.

 _Oh, my lying child…_  She pulls away gently, pressing a firm kiss to Kimani’s forehead.  _Patris. I love you. I’m safe, now you be safe, too. Don’t welcome the darkness in. I’m going to wake us up now. You must write to me._

_Mama—_

“Come back to me, please, young one.” Solas’ voice is soothing as he comes into view. He holds her marked hand up to the rift, and belatedly she feels its pull in her bones, how it irritates the ache in her battered shoulder. The rift snaps shut and she yells, writhing against Solas as the kickback picks through her muscles like teeth.  _This isn’t right._

And then, everything clenches; she nearly knees herself in the chest as her entire body contracts, and Solas has to wrestle her legs to the ground as she convulses. “It’s alright. Let it pass through you. Focus on me.” His hand rests on her forehead. “You cannot go away again.”

Kimani keens low but obeys, holding his gaze as her body twitches. The pain isn’t sharp but it is steady, a hand twisting her muscles and tracing a path only it knew, carving lines of ache in its wake so deep they could house rivers. She tries to focus on her breathing, tries not to lose her breath to the spasms.

“Do you feel it passing? Almost there, now.” 

Kimani soon can’t see for the rush of tears. But Solas is right; pain releases her slowly, reluctantly, normal sensation slipping back into her body so that she feels calm. Too calm. And heavy.

“I feel so thick,” She says, relaxing into Solas’ grip with a sigh. “Tongue and skin and…” She yawns until her jaw aches. Solas makes a soft noise, the hand holding her legs sliding to her stomach.

“How about here? Do you still feel like you’re pulling anything?” Solas asks. Kimani shakes her head, and he sighs. “Good.  _Good_. Now. These soldiers need to see you’re alright. Arms around my neck; I’ll lift you. It won’t take long, and we can lay you back down again if need be. Or your Iron Bull can carry you. Ready?” She drags heavy limbs around him and he lifts her like she weighs nothing at all.

The courtyard is still but for Cullen, who takes a tentative step forward, looking both as fierce and tired as she’s ever seen him. She nods as best she can, and a smile flickers underneath the grime on his skin.

“Solas, how long was I out?” She mumbles, head rushing from being set upright.

“Out?” Solas frowns. The soldiers and Wardens wait for more than a nod. Everyone holds the same breath until she grits her teeth and raises the Anchor to them.

“Passed out. Fainted. How long?” It  _couldn’t_  have been long; it still smells of gore and ash. At her signal Cullen unsheathes his sword, raising it to his men, calling her name. Her squad comes close: tired and worn, but together. When they move, she sees the air move around them like it had her in the Fade until she squeezes her eyes shut. On opening, its gone.

The tick must be finished, so she counts them.  _Six._ For a moment, she had forgotten. Now it hits her like the Fade hit Hawke.

“You…did not faint.”  Solas looks at her then, leaning to accommodate when her knees give way. “You did not pass into sleep at all.”

Before she can respond the surviving soldiers’ voices rise together, above the smoke of waning fires, to cheer their victory.

…

They sit in the tent she will share with Cassandra, who left them with little more than a weary nod as she went to find Cullen. Bull had been more difficult to dismiss, retreating with an ill-concealed glare at the back of Solas’ head.  _I’ll be around, Boss_.

It has happened to Solas before, though he says it almost begrudgingly. Extreme moments of stress and unbreakable will, are its catalysts, this Dreaming without sleeping. Kimani thinks he means to placate her; if her will is so unbreakable she’d have not traveled at all, here where the Veil is too thin.

“That doesn’t make sense, Solas. It is not Dreaming if I’m not asleep.” 

They sit opposite each other, legs crossed. Her armor is piled next to her, and she thumbs grime off of one of her pauldrons, avoiding the plant roots and _nesomni_  they’ve set between them. The medic has already stuffed her with embrium. She is tired of the woody taste of herbs.

“I believe we can rename it later. But it  _is_  of the same vein of magic.”

“Because you’ve studied it extensively,” She says, disbelief sharp on her words. Kimani has distanced herself since Haven’s fall; they do not speak at Skyhold beyond discussing what Helisma derives from demon pieces they bring from the field. In the field, they speak of the Fade only as it pertains to individual rifts, not to Dreaming. Only once had she relented to listen to his travel-telling. So, she is used to this faint, mechanical smile he gives to idiots, dismissal, or petty vitriol thrown his way.

“I have not. But,  _you_ genuinely thought you’d fainted, because it felt like normal Dreaming, no? I only deduce. Will you not eat it?” He spreads a hand to the herbs. Kimani flicks the felandaris root he wants her to take, sighs, and puts it in her mouth followed by the pieces of her dried  _nesomni,_ broken from travel. At the very least, they were surprisingly agreed that she must avoid the Fade, if only while here in the desert.

“You have survived a feat today. The Fade’s explosion from your body was…well, it was as terrifying as it was magnificent.”

“Seems like only you saw.”

“Because I turned back for you,” he blinks pointedly, “Perhaps it is better that way, until we know the extent of the Fade’s interest in you. What it thinks you must do.”

“Mm. So you heard that.” 

This smile he gives makes her tense. “Yes, though I do not know why. I might be older, Inquisitor, but I am not much closer in understanding our gifts.” Once she has swallowed everything, Solas stands. His looking down on her is almost predatory, the way his face sharpens in the shadows.

“Rest. Between your remedies and mine, you shouldn’t so much as smell the Fade tonight. And if you should venture despite our efforts I will be there, and I will protect you.”

…

She cannot sleep. Neither, it seems, can the Chargers, but she only raises her hand to them silently as she goes to walk the battlements. She already feels so crowded, so thick with the other world. No voices, no visions, just a weight, too familiar to be construed as anything but the Fade. She almost misses the whispers of Redcliffe.

Every inch of Adamant is stained in blood and soot, the stench souring in her nose. Kimani walks alone, her tunic now tied around her waist so the air kisses her where she’s most sore. She idly traces the scars of her silly, demon-punching shoulder wound, wonders how she’d made it through this very real battle without being beheaded, or worse.  _Better armor, being a proper mage._  Her sword had stayed, mostly, in its scabbard this night. It only means she must work harder.

Desert skies have the most stars, she’s convinced; The Fade has none, has no proper rendition of the sky to speak of. It’s a comfort that lifts the thickness from her skin, even if only a little.

 _It’s this place_ , Solas had said.  _To say the Veil is thin is an understatement. You are too oriented to the Fade’s essences. They seem to wish to cling to you._  Despite what he withholds, he is still the only one who understands.  _You’ll feel much better once you’ve left_. Solas would stay behind to Dream in the ruins, to return with one of the companies leaving ahead of Cullen. Bull and his Chargers would also remain, while she would leave as soon as possible; the Inquisitor could not linger. She is always needed elsewhere.

By now the rubble almost looks like it belongs here, like Adamant is in its purest state destroyed. This does nothing to dispel bad spirits, the shadows of demons trapped in the stone and the ground beneath, though she’s heard this from those who believe so. Kimani keeps her hands crossed under her bosom, stepping away from stones too red with blood; she is no Mortalitasi. She is content to bow her head to death in passing. So far, it has let her be.

“I thought dance was your prayer.” Bull is a few steps behind her, even more mindful of the rubble, though she thinks not for the same reasons. Without turning back she waves him up, bumping into him amiably when he falls into step. “Good to see you walking around, Boss. Just wanted to check up, I don’t have to stay.” He walks close, arms loose at his sides.

“Stay, but…I feel crowded. Too much skin. Thick. Very…magically stifled.” 

Bull nods thoughtfully at her nonsense. “You might have had the least…second least fun day. Damn it.” He curses when Kimani flinches. “Sorry, Boss. I’m sorry.” 

Kimani scratches anxiously at her scalp, scoffing when Bull gently pulls her hand away, holding it in his.

“It was necessary,” she says, the words like bricks in her mouth. “Someone had to stay, and I couldn’t. Even though I had a better chance against that thing. And…brought you all there in the first fucking place.”

“You didn’t see yourself in there. Your shit might have been fancier, but if you’d have kept that up? Dead. Then Thedas would be nothing but a demon party. And…the Qun, I guess.” He holds her hand tight when she grumbles. Kimani flexes in his grip, can feel where their callouses scratch against each other. “Anyway you brought us in, you brought us out. That’s all there is to it. You’re a little too necessary to die.”

This hits her deep in the chest, where not even the Fade has reached. “That is so ugly. That I have more reason to live than another.”

“It’s fact,” Bull says bluntly. “We all know it. You’re important.” Her laughter is raspy and bitter.

“My hand is important.” 

Bull stops then, frowns down at her almost apologetically. Kimani steps in front of him, lifts the marked hand palms-up so he can see the Anchor’s dull, crackling glow. He takes it, holding it just as tightly.

“Come on, Boss. That’s not useful. Give yourself some credit.”

“My  _hand_  is important,” she repeats. The angry wave rises up from her chest faster than she can catch it, and her voice shakes. “My body—what it can do, what it can withstand, what beliefs people can put onto it—is important. I am not.  I am not Inquisitor because I am Kimani. I am Inquisitor because…because I heard a noise at a Conclave I shouldn’t have been at, and was curious. Because catching that thrice-forsaken orb somehow didn’t kill me. Because the thing we fight against threw me against a trebuchet instead of into the jaws of his  _dragon_  or the fucking fire.” She cries freely now, pulling weakly against his hold. “It would be no better if Andraste came from the sky and picked me herself. The Fade that I have so carefully molded into my life beats at me now. I can’t shield myself, and now I am heavy with it. My skin is thick with it.” She leans forward to lay her forehead against his chest before trying again to pull away, but he holds her fast. Damn him. “This is not about me.  _I_ am not important in this.”

“No.” They both turn. Cole peeks out from under his hat, brow furrowed. “ _No._  I saw. I saw the Fade and your will. A dance that _you_  led. You wrought wrath with wings.”

“The Fade called to me, Cole. It coaxed me,  _coerced_  me. That’s no dance.” She shivers hard at recent memory, at the press of that other world on her body, the shadow of which remains. “I thought it was a trap. The Demon. But I could not let us die.”

“Exactly.” Bull lifts her chin, letting go of her unmarked hand. “ _Exactly_ , Boss. You damn near killed yourself to wrangle some shit to throw at an actual monster. For us.” The kindness in his eyes is too much; Kimani wrenches from his weakened grasp, turns away from both him and Cole.

She sees Hawke’s limp body, behind her eyelids. The ghoulish head of her mother. But she had checked on her mother. It makes no sense.

“Tell me about my fear, Cole. How does it call you?”

“Your names call to me, over and over, the list grown longer as they take root in your spirit for the first time, or again. Kimani. Patris. Sanwa. Inquisitor. Herald.” He pauses, looks between them. “K—“

“There is no need to repeat them,” she barks, biting her tongue after, but Cole simply sighs like a very old man.

“They all add to the thick. The demon called you Sanwa. That name chokes you. But it is also part of why you…must.”

“I must.” Kimani wipes tears from her cheeks but they only return, searing hot and unbidden. “I already do as I must. I don’t know what more that can mean, Cole. And I’ll guess that you don’t know, either.” He is silent. “Why do I feel I won’t live very long, at this rate?”

“He would keep you. Alive.” Cole nods at Bull, and they look at each other. Bull shrugs.

“He’s not wrong.”

“Yes, that is partly your job, Big’un.” Kimani folds her arms, but does not protest when Bull draws her back to him. He’s solid and cool from the night breeze, and he smells strongly of soot, his arms around her both welcome and strange.

“Gotta stay on, Boss.” He murmurs, bending to press his mouth to the top of her head, and she sniffs in surprise. “You can.” He says something else but it is too low, lost. She doesn’t know if she wanted to hear it, or if she wants him to rest where he is forever. Kimani reaches up to run a hand over his jaw, caressing until she brushes his ear. It flicks and his hold on her tightens, and he exhales into her hair. Then she wants to see him, lifting her head until she can look in his eye, foreheads pressed together.

She is supposed to be careful but for all she knows, she’s got Fade under her skin, picking away at her seams.

“I don’t know what that means, either,” she says, rising up on her toes until she can taste salt on Bull’s cracked lips, the tang of elfroot on his tongue. He only hesitates a moment before her feet skim the ground and she is crushed to him. He is gentle otherwise, careful, so that the lightning rushed down her spine pools warm and ready in her belly. And still…kissing The Iron Bull is something like walking into the Fade or, and she’s only guessing, the sea; there is nothing else but his hands, his mouth, his tongue, the thunderous beating of his heart. It is overwhelming to be surrounded by him. It is too familiar.

Kimani pulls away. Watches his eye open inch by inch. Feels the warm gust of his quiet sigh. She runs her thumb over the fullness of his bottom lip as he lowers her back to the ground, holding her until she pulls away once more.  _I don’t want to be swallowed whole._ She feels the Fade’s residue re-settle over her like a cloak.  _Spirits._

“You cannot go away again.” Cole echoes Solas. She watches the frustration play out on his delicate, pale face as he repeats himself. He knows too much, and wants too little for it: a genuine spirit of kindness, even as he dances in between.

“But you know that I would, if only I could.” 

Cole nearly shakes the hat off of his head, frowning.

“Please Kimani, listen. You got me out.” He puts both hands over his heart. “You got  _us_  out. A success.  _You_  succeeded in the unfamiliar, in the unknown. Because you are worthy. Can you hear that a little louder than anything else? Think it over, until it’s in your own voice. Right?  _Beg that I succeed._  Do you remember, Inquisitor, what you learned then?” Cole inches closer to her side as Bull wipes new tears from her cheeks. “Does that help?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heheheheh. Yeah. Comments of all kinds are appreciated. Also, I talk shit and do lil headcanons etc on my tumblr ( oh-kasheay.tumblr.com ), so that's always a thing. Let me know your thinks!


	11. Celestial Bodies, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We don't want her. Give her green.

Refuge. 

Kimani has taken the Fade as refuge since she was young. She had fought for the Fade to be her refuge from the monotony of the Circle, from her hate of the Circle. It was where she could see her mother again, even as diminished as what the Fade could offer of another person. Shadows with hands. Always almost real. Most memory of her early years is tinged in that muddled, otherworldly green.

“Does that help?” Cole asks, hands over his heart. She had seen his face in the Fade, inhuman mix of disgust and fear so strong it shook his body. Spirits, he was so frightened; the Nightmare had been small, once. Perhaps a spirit of some benevolence, or a spirit without such pointed direction, and it had been threaded with evil until there was nothing left.  _You got me out._

Cole’s own fear is a thing Kimani hasn’t thought of, not really, before today.

“It helps.” She sighs, and Cole’s hands un-clench from around each other. She can see the blushing red half-moons from where his nails dug into skin; he is so pale. Then he is gone.

“This could be a learning moment,” Kimani says, chuckling as she turns to Bull. He wears his frown lightly, barely wrinkling his gnarled brow. “If only I knew how to explain it to you. If only I could.”

“Can’t you?” He doesn’t move when she closes the space between them, her folded arms the only barrier. As if that’d work; He is twice her size. He could take her in his arms with little effort. But his hands stay at his sides.

“Would you want to learn that much about my magic? Or me?”

Bull grunts thoughtfully. “No, would be my knee-jerk answer. Yes is what I should say.”

“Because you’re a spy.”

He nods. “Still that, yeah. This shit is beyond what even my people considered. And you’re a weird little bit.”

Kimani blinks. “Weird little bit?”

“Well. You’re not really a little person, but you’re little to me. Weird little bit of I don’t know what the fuck.” He smiles, shrugging.

She and Bull are too good at withholding words; He curls his tongue around ones that mean less until they sound good enough that meaning more is irrelevant. She kills the words altogether, which is neither better nor worse. Bull regards her, his face as soft as his touch had been. As small as she’s felt today, now she feels open, wide, split like a book. His one eye catches the light and turns storm-cloud gray. The eye patch glints, ornate. He has become too much of a fixture in her head.

“Remember what we said about the Anchor, in Haven?”

Bull smirks, nodding. “Maybe not a key. A hammer.”

“A hammer.” She unfurls the marked hand between them, illuminating their faces. “That’s how we got in there. Spirits know how we got out. Maker knows why it sticks to me so. But it has crossed into my magic. I can feel it, Big’un,” This much, she thinks, is safe to say. She can only trust him in degrees, for all she wants to taste the embrium on his tongue again. “It’s not just a hammer anymore, but I don’t yet have a name for it.”

Finally, his hands come to rest on her shoulder, warm despite the night’s chill. Kimani sighs, leaning her head to his chest.

“We haven’t been back on real ground a day,” Bull says above her, his thumbs pressing into the sides of her neck. “Figure out a name for it on the way back to Skyhold.”  
  


“I have to figure out a few things on the way back.”

Now he laughs. “Yeah.”

They stand this way, their breathing slow and dominoing one’s breath after the other. One of them pulls away first, but Kimani doesn’t register who.

***

The Inquisition’s makeshift camp is quiet save for soft snoring and the shifting of weary bodies. Armor is stacked near blanket-covered lumps of weary soldiers on the ground, dull and dark. A mix of metal and blood and soap wafts from armor and people alike, tinged with the odor of elfroot.

The medical area is small and just as quiet, wounded soldiers either soothed into sleep or dead. One of the medics is awake, her face a map of exhaustion from the crease in her brow to the hollows beneath her big brown eyes and the pressed line of her mouth. She is much younger than Kimani, who is reminded of her Circle apprentices. Her kids.

The Nightmare hadn’t pulled that out from her depths. Some days, Kimani thinks she’s succeeded in forgetting them completely. But this one was right in front of her, worn sick and still awake, bless her. Kimani smiles, coming closer, and the medic immediately offers her a seat with a wave of her thin hand.

“Your Worship.” Her voice is even thinner.

“I will be thirty my next name day,” Kimani begins, settling in beside the medic. “A lot of these soldiers were younger than me, are younger than me. This is my first real battle. And I helped plan  it. This isn’t your first, eh?” The medic shakes her head; it is as Kimani figured.  “And you’re younger than me, too. How old are you…?”

“Nona, m’lady,” she says softly, smiling. “I’m twenty.”

A bit older than her apprentices, save one. Belatedly, Kimani notices the staff laying near her feet. It has a strong base, but the focus is dull, chipped, and the staff is without a blade.

“I was still in my Circle when I was your age. Ostwick, in the Free Marches.”

Nona suddenly looks sheepish, hesitating. Kimani understands, bumping her lightly on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I ran away from Ostwick before the war started. Maybe that makes me a proper apostate too, if only for a year, before…” she opens her marked hand so the Anchor glows freely.

“Now you’ve walked out the Fade twice, ” Nona says, eyes glued to the mark. “That must be horrible.”

Surprised, Kimani bites back a laugh to wake even the dead among them. “I don’t get that often. Yeah. I’d rather keep my feet this side of the Veil.”

And then a less surprising question: “Does it hurt?”

“Yes. But not so badly. Feels weird. Poke it. Go on,” She urges. “I swear it won’t do either of us a bit of harm.” Regardless, Kimani stiffens when Nona’s blunt finger dips swiftly into the voided space of her palm. “Now you’ve crossed the Veil, too. How’d it feel?”

“Strange,” Nona admits, flexing her finger. She brings it to her nose before realizing she might offend, and balls her fists in her lap. “I’d not want to do it again.” Her laugh tinkles like a bell when Kimani snorts.

It takes a bit of cajoling for Kimani to get Nona to rest, swearing oaths that Nona would not get in any trouble, not when she’s being relieved by the Inquisitor. But once the girl’s head hits the ground, she’s fast asleep. Unlike Cassandra, she doesn’t snore

After the day she’s had, Kimani doesn’t want to sleep. With the amount of time between now and sunrise she might just sit here and process, before crossing the hot desert renders her useless for anything but begging for water.

Corypheus would be furious once he became aware of what happened in Adamant. It makes Kimani smile; that would be one directly good  thing to come of this. The Inquisition had acquired the remaining Wardens, despite protests, because Kimani would rather keep them close. She remembers Cullen’s flustered, angry face when she shouted at him, knifing her hand at Stroud:  _Do you see who is alive? Should I waste Hawke’s sacrifice for your comfort?_

It had been crude but Stroud had only stood taller, and the dissenters quieted.

And then Erimond; just the thought of him makes her boil. She would behead him with the bluntest sword in Skyhold as soon as she got the chance, trial be damned for the man who spoke of his “master” even as he sat in shackles. She will wear a red blouse at the execution.

The rumors around her second emergence from the Fade would spread and grow wings or legs or fins, depending on the storyteller. Kimani has never cared. She’s always liked a good story, and the less true, the easier to hear. She was not chosen by Andraste yet they would still believe the goddess pulled her from the Enclave by hand. But the stories, and why they are told, are the one thing truly not about her.

Someone supremely devout might think the Fade’s clinging to her now to be some new miracle. Kimani is only Andrastian by Circle indoctrination; it has never mattered to her. What matters most is what she can do with her hands. She is now a little afraid of what she can do with her hands.

For the second time today, she supposes.

Peering down at Nona, who has shifted away from her, Kimani pulls at her magic, summoning fadestuff and smelling its faint sourness when it comes too easily, lighting both of her hands like veilfire. It renders her blood wine-warm, rolling up her arms in thick, gripping tendrils where before it would contain itself to her palms until she urged it further. The Anchor reacts, glowing and snapping as the magic creeps over her limbs, but there’s no pain: it’s almost a balm, cool against her skin.

It was like this, this good feeling, when she’d closed the Breach. The Anchor continues to crackle like kindling, a display of popping, green embers. Nona stirs; Kimani shifts as far away from her as the bench allows. If she wakes--if any of tehm wake-- Kimani doesn’t know what to tell her, but she does not yet withdraw her magic.

There are practical reasons she doesn’t cast Fade, but now she urges it up into the sky like smoke. Relief unfurls with it like a morning glory, reaching towards the moonlight. She’s seen Solas strike with the Fade, has asked after it, declining when he offered to teach. She might have to stop declining when Solas offers.

 _“Urging, needing, helping. Woman with the breached hand, softer than hard, more good than bad. Not by much. Enough.”_  Kimani jumps when Cole appears again, mumbling.

“Cole?”

 _“Twice to visit, twice to leave. She must leave. We don’t want her. Give her green. She must.”_  When he streams thoughts like this his face goes blank, different than when he speaks for himself, and he looks more like a ghost than ever.

“Cole.That’s not from me.”

When he looks at her, his expression is calm. “No. You are too bright inside for something so clear. I hear only names from you. That was what I heard in the Fade. Before you wrought wrath.”

She can believe it. He’d probably heard many things in his old home.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

He smiles weakly. “This is only for you.”

They look up at her magic gathering into a cloud above them, as amorphous as it had been in the Fade.

_We don’t want her. Give her green._

Kimani wonders if the Fade had meant for any of It to follow her out, if give her green meant that it should stay on in the waking world.  She’d told Bull that she trusted it-- the fadestuff she could play with in her hand-- in a way back before fire claimed Haven, but what clings to her like a second skin is something beyond her as much as it is within her.

Solas will have to return with them, she decides. Adamant’s memories are going nowhere. This is more important.

She withdraws her magic just as easily as she cast it and is left with a slick sense of calm. The dread, she thinks, will come back, but for now, with the medic at her feet and the moonlight casting shadow over their camp and the smell of blood still in the air, Kimani is left eerily serene, the feeling heavy and near-overbearing. Thick. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last of the Celestial Bodies, hope the last three chapters were fairly dramatic and weird.  
> Questions, comments, critique always welcome. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, I added to the series: Travel Light", which is drabbles about Kimani before the Conclave. Tek a peek (just click the "Verity" series link, it's part 1)


	12. Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani receives a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a break in the drama; Kimani needs a pick-me-up. The morbidity of said pick-me-up is debatable.

_Daughter,_

_This does not count as my letter, alright? My letter is coming. I wish that my saying "I love you” a thousand times could keep you safe, but you’ve proven able to keep yourself safe far better without the prayers of your sacrilegious mother. I would say spirits keep you, but I’m afraid of the spirits that might try._

_You have already exceeded everything I could ever think you to be. But of course you have. One day, you will meet our family and understand why. One day, I will see you again._

_Your father’s letter will come before mine, as will aunt Tavi’s. It is so strange how we all love a woman we are not yet privileged to know._

_Asha Kenee_

_As to what I've sent-- it is a fox. Apparently we are in short supply of bears._

The package has waited for Kimani’s return from the Approach. Rose and peppermint seep through the dirty parcel paper; the fragrance is undiminished by its long journey from the Marches, as strong as though the oil vials were open directly underneath her nose.

 _Mama._ Her eyes well with tears.

Kimani has been sent a gift.  She runs her fingers over its teeth.

****

She’s come across corpses half rotted from the Approach to the Hinterlands and waterlogged on the Coast with their bones still stained with blood,  has seen the needle-thin skeletons of long dead fish in Crestwood and riverbanks across Ferelden. There was a man, maybe a year ago, whose arm she’d broken so thoroughly that a piece of the bone ripped through his skin. Solas has a jaw around his neck. The youngest apprentice in her Circle, a little thing barely nine years old, had presented her with his vacated tooth and a sea-wide smile not long after the Templars brought him in. All that’s left of her oldest apprentice is charred bones lost in the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Kimani has known her share of bones. And all of these things have, somehow, overshadowed one of the more precious memories of her short youth. How could she forget?

“The last time I was home, I was eight. Mama’s house was small and filled with beautiful things; glass dancers and marble animals.  A miniature of the opera house she sang in, made of alabaster. The sun sigil of my matrilineage on wood and shiny lacquer. Lots of jewelry and gifts from admirers.”

Kimani sits across from Blackwall at his workbench, clad in rough tunic and leggings and enjoying the musty warmth of the barn more than she anticipated. They are two days back from the desert; Skyhold is still immersed in the novelty of their Inquisitor’s second walk in the Fade and the Warden smiles knowingly at her dingy attire, allowing only one amused look at the dark cloth wrapped over her hair. He is the first  of their motley crew recruited, he can remember the Inquisitor when she was a fresh Herald, nervous and grim and hiding from everyone in her gray disguises.

She watches Blackwall’s rough hands dance delicately over her gift, the pads of his fingers barely touching the fox mandible’s carved surface. He is as gentle as ever she’s known him to be, quiet in his praise though it shines in his eyes when he hazards a glance her way.

Now Blackwall presses a finger to the bone and asks, “Sigils?”

Kimani reaches across the table, tapping the jaw with her nail. “Yes.” Blackwall waits for more explanation and blinks when she only smiles at him. “There were also bones. Teeth and skulls, carved like this and painted so you nearly forgot you were looking at a dead bird, or wildcat, or wolf. She might have even had dragonlings.”

This memory is one whole image, clear and embedded, of the wall in her mother’s house that held Asha’s most beautiful trinkets.  Kimani sees it so clearly in her mind that it nearly overtakes what her eyes see. Blackwall is quiet.

“The bones were gifts from her siblings," she continues, "My aunts and uncle.”

“Birthday gifts, were they?”

“Just gifts. Promises not to come after her."

“What, your mum do something off?” Sera asks from the rafters. Kimani looks up at her, gets a squint of the eyes in return. Sera, who had decided in Haven that Kimani was “well enough,” has been hovering since the return from Adamant. Kimani doesn’t mind, knows some question or cryptic comment will come eventually. Perhaps a drawing.

“I don’t think so,” She says, “But I do know that besides her and her younger sister--my youngest aunt-- the clan remains in Rivain.”

Blackwall grunts, handing the mandible back to her.

“It’s lovely work,” he says. “A strange piece for jewelry, but lovely work. I’ve got the tools you need, but I’m afraid I’m out of jaw bones.”

“I’d be worried if you had them in stock,” Kimani laughs. “We can get one fresh. I’m thinking bear. We can manage that, right, Blackwall?”

The Warden shrugs. “You want a bear jaw. I’ll get you a bear jaw, my lady. Get you the whole bear skeleton, if you wish it.”

“Just the jaw, Warden,” Kimani grins, turning the mandible over in her hands. Asha has carved overlapping suns across its surface; it is the foremost sigil of clan Lia and the one that, had she become a Seer, Asha would have claimed as the oldest daughter. There is the shadow of that same sun on Kimani’s back: a paltry rendition.

The next day, as she and Blackwall and Sera (who invites herself) trek through the lower Frostbacks in search of a bear, Kimani  decides what she will carve into its jaw: Moon, after moon, after moon.

*****

_Mama,_

_What's this teasing? Two letters? I must be a spectacular daughter indeed! I am very important now, you know._

_But truly I hope I haven’t scared you too much, and that whatever stories reach you aren’t too extravagant. Wouldn’t want you proud of your daughter for things she hasn’t done. I’ll be in Orlais soon with the Empress herself. I’ll write you pages and pages describing Halamshiral._

_I've made you a gift in return, since you've honored me. Consider it a sigil between the pair of us, as Lia women away from home._

_Please don’t--_

“Still here?” Solas asks from his couch in the corner  of the study. When he wakes it is often all at once; it’s less often now, in the middle of the night. Kimani has lit both lanterns on Solas’ desk, and their light laps at his murals in shadowy tongues, warping her overblown shadow into nightmare shapes. When Solas rises, his own joins hers.

Kimani shrugs. “I can leave.”

When he waves her off, it’s almost too graceful for a wandering apostate. “No need. I appreciate your quiet company, even as you continue to stall our meeting.”

In the last two weeks, she and Solas had sparred nearly every day. She has come to know the feel of Solas’ fadestuff; it is light and easy over her skin, so much that she forgets it lifts her off her feet to slam her into the ground. It is as slight as the one who wields it.

The matches surely strengthen her own magic, but they ready her for Solas’ subtleties as well; she knows they will walk the Fade together for answers about Adamant, just as she knows they will find nothing.

She doesn’t tell him this, of course.

 _This is only for you_ , Cole had said.

“I stall for good reason. Besides," she adds, "Look at my jaw.” Kimani raises the bear’s mandible so Solas can see. It had started as a smooth jaw bone, scraped and cleaned of its flesh in a boiling, stinking vat, and now was half-filled with little crescent moons. By her own diligence, she may be finished within the week. Through Blackwall’s guidance, it will be almost pretty. Nature makes it so the smell of bear will fill her nose for days. “The Fade will wait. My mother’s gift will not.”

"You were so cold during your execution of the magister that I forgot how sentimental you are," Solas yawns, reclining. He pulls sleep over him like a blanket; she can see him begin melting back into the shape of the couch, piece by piece. "The suns on your bone necklace, then, are more than decorative. As are the moons you carve into this new piece?" Solas gestures between the bear’s mandible on the table, and Kimani’s gift around her neck.

"About as decorative as your own necklace, I assume," Kimani murmurs.

"Indeed,” Solas chuckles.

Kimani lately feels the urge to push, to ask after the small jaw piece around his neck. It holds no carvings; as much as he berates the Dalish, perhaps it is some charm of theirs.

As Solas settles back into sleep Kimani returns to her letter, inking her quill:

_Please don't be upset at the brevity of my letter; I cannot tell you everything. That’s part of keeping you safe. Bad enough I brought darkness to your dreams those weeks ago. Try not to worry; that job belongs to me._

_Kimani Patris_

She carves the outlines of a few more careful moons before her forehead meets the bone-dusted table.

In the morning Solas makes her tea and does not comment on the _nesomni_ she takes with it, her humming cheerily and stroking the teeth around her neck.


	13. Dreams May Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lot of dreaming. Discovery (but not really). Iron Bull "I like Kimani" angst, but also direction. Much mystery. Skinny elves you can't trust.

Kimani waits until she runs out of _nesomni_ before assenting to Solas’ wishes, and he all but drags her into a dream.

“It is not so bad as you thought, hmm?” Solas has a specter’s voice, bouncing off of the strings of this dream like soft, sordid harp notes. Kimani thinks they are in Skyhold, though it is empty and pristine and whole, because it is familiar. And he’s seen how she reacts to surprise.

Her time after Adamant, the few weeks of semi-normalcy, has been calm, but now she feels the heavy residue of the Fade grip her skin as it comes to half-life. _We don’t want her._ It had said, but walking in dreams seems to be no trespass, more akin to walking on the edge than diving in.

“I wonder what you’ve found in our fortress’s memories, Solas,” she says. This is the Fade as she’s known it all her life, but as she could never know it again. Kimani can no longer see dreams as anything more than the surface reflection of a pond full of sharp-toothed fish, and whispers. The Fade is so much _more._

They stand in a deserted courtyard in the space where the sparring ring is long since built in the waking world. Looking around, it is indeed Skyhold but something about it wears on her nerves. An apprehension, burnt hot and new to replace the complacent flame she’d come to keep for Solas.

“Inquisitor.” Solas’ smile starts out gentle, barely there as he pulls her from her thoughts.

“A fortress, waiting for us to keep it,” Kimani replies. There are no spirits visible to her eye but she can feel multiple presences, old and steady and bound to this place.

Solas nods, “That _is_ what I said, so long ago now.”

As much as she tries, Kimani cannot remember much of Solas from Adamant, but in this dream he takes on what she thinks is happiness, brightening his skin like sunlight on ceramic. Even the way he moves is changed: slippery, and much surer.

“You dream here often.” She says. As tall as she is Solas still looks down on her, thin body curved like a reed with his hands at his back.

“I would not have us dwell in a place without knowing it through its ages,” Solas says lightly, stepping away from her. “Like everyone, I use my talents.”

“I see.” Kimani frowns, a flash of warning immediate and cold clamping down on her throat. She looks at Solas. “Wake us up.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Solas says easily, “I’d have you do it.”

She’s ready with a retort before she really hears him. “What?”

“You’ve mentioned it as a weakness of yours.”

Kimani watches his face, realizes despite its smooth planes and brevity of wrinkles, he seems so old. His smile now is an age, ancient and frightening and sharp with teeth. He’s teaching her. He knows she’s afraid, and he’s teaching her.

Waking from a dream is simple, simpler when the dream is your own and built by the threads of familiar imagination; you can slide your fingers through the façade and break the strings, the base lines of consciousness pulled taut like landed mooring line. Kimani reaches for Solas’s strings slowly, crouching to the ground and pressing her fingers against the grass. The _illusion_ of grass; it gives minimal resistance before her hand slips through it, meeting string after string pulled tight in a voided space in place of soil. Plucking one elicits the first tremors of an earthquake, and Kimani looks at Solas. He stands straight and tall, waiting.

Waking from someone else’s dream, a Dreamer’s dream, Solas’ dream, is something she never thought she’d do; it breaks her out in a cold sweat. She knew that with him, the bald asshole, Dreaming would make her like this. She shouldn’t be here; he is giving her a way out, but she has to make it.

His strings are rough against her fingers. She’ll have to pull hard.

“Don’t be afraid of hurting me,” Solas says. Kimani hooks her fingers around, bracing to pull. “Do not be alarmed on the other side,” He murmurs.

Kimani pulls hard, can hear the snap of consciousness and the fizzle of façade, and comes scrambling up for air as she wakes. She finds herself held firm against the sofa, reflective eyes shining yellow down on her.

“Shh,” Solas whispers as she gasps. “Just breathe, young one. That was fine. You’re alright.”

It doesn’t take her long to catch her breath, sitting up as Solas retreats to the foot of the sofa, his eyes the only light in the dark study. They’d left no candles lit; when she swings her feet to the floor, she knocks over the mug of herbs used to help her sleep.

“Why did we end our journey so swiftly?” Solas asks after a time, once Kimani sits back against the sofa with a sigh. She has not dreamt in so long, it seems. The taste of it lingers on her tongue, the woody mix of herb and bitter Fade. Her skin is thick and pulsing almost melodically, almost calming.

“The only other Dreamer I’ve ever known is my mother. I know her, know how she feels and all of that. I’ve never dreamt with another. Nor an elf.”

“My being elvhen makes some difference?”

Kimani shrugs. “Don’t know, really. But you glow in the Fade, Solas. And move like water. And smile a lot. And…we will try again.” Kimani turns to Solas in the dark. “We must understand what’s happened to me. If…if anything. I just got skittish.”

“You must remember,” His voice is closer now as he shifts, bony hips pressing into the flesh of hers, “That I have spent the better part of my life exploring. You have not. That is the only real difference between us, and it shouldn’t frighten you. I wouldn’t bring you into my world to see you hurt.”

“I’m not afraid of getting hurt.” Kimani rises wearily from the sofa once her eyes adjust. Solas, she realizes with a worried pang, is more her friend than her enemy. For now. Or, she is too easily swayed by his gentle words, his closeness, the care in which he, sometimes, calls her _young one_. “We will try again, Solas. I lost my nerve, is all. Adamant is still so fresh.”

“Indeed, it draws near still.” _That_ is what scares her about him; that she doesn’t always understand what he means. That, sometimes, it sounds as if he knows too much about the Fade. Even the Raw Fade.

She bids Solas a quiet good-night, decides on walking once around the ramparts to clear her mind, but she only takes that time to suppose.

 _I could practice on my own_ , she thinks, nodding to the night-guard as they hail her one by one.

Walking into the dreams of someone with no magic was the easiest thing in the world; their dreams are often wide-open. A bit volatile, if one walked into a nightmare, and walking out tended to require a gentle hand regardless. Children were the difficult ones, and harder to escape in a pinch, but still fairly simple: Kimani could walk into dreams and pull strings all night.

But she has a code. Ill kept-to and dusted over from disuse, but a code nonetheless. In her mind, the only thing offered to her per her gifts is the Fade, and the occasional invitation. Anything else is trespassing.

Still. She _could_. Kimani looks at a dozing soldier a moment too long before tearing herself away, walking on.

 _No_. That is an urge she’d wrangled years ago, the giddy burst of _‘I am able’_ and the subsequent reach at her own power. Kimani knows she’s powerful, more than most, and it’s a tempting thing. She folds it away. She should keep folding it away.

At the next set of stairs, she descends into the courtyard.

A small elvhen man brushes her sleepily in passing—a fellow nightwalker, she thinks—and she squeezes his hands in hers as he apologizes, eyes flashing. She bids him _no don’t fret, goodnight, try and find some rest_ , and climbs the set of stairs to the main hall. She would pace in her room, wait for sleep there.

Halfway to her quarters she runs her hands over her face, trying to drag burning exhaustion from her eyes, and smells a faint perfume. Nothing of hers, but familiar. It stops her in her tracks and she looks around the dark stairwell, confused until the feeling passes and sleep weighs heavier on her eyes than curiosity.

To bed, to bed. No dreaming.

…

“Inquisitor?”

“Mm.” Kimani curls tighter into herself, slipping under the covers. “Mm.” She did not touch her wine last night, but this morning it feels like she’s drank two pitchers on an empty stomach. She doesn’t even know who’s calling her; their voice wavy like rising heat.

 _Solas's fucking fault_ , she thinks, but even thought-speak brings her pain.

“In…Have you been drinking?” Her covers are gingerly pulled away so Josephine’s voice is clear, thick, and sweet. Her small hand pushes Kimani’s hair from her forehead and the sensation is heightened; Kimani lifts her head to it, hissing as nausea hits.

“I have not,” she whines, “I _swear_ I have not, Josephine…” With Josephine’s help she sits up against her stack of pillows.

“You enjoy the pillows,” Josephine murmurs, biting back a giggle.

“I have to sleep…up…or else…” Kimani tries to breathe through a new, pounding pain at the top of her head.

“Sleeping sickness, yes. Cassandra has said. I’ve sent up for a bit of breakfast and coffee, tea, cocoa. Open your eyes. An eye. Something.”

Kimani does so, realizes the room is still dark. “It’s not morning?” Josephine lay a hand on Kimani’s stomach.

“Morning is on its way.  As are the Commander and the rest of our forces. It will be a busy day, my lady, but do not fret. I will have you up and your usual…amenable self in no time.

“Goddess.”

Josie smiles.

“If you insist. I will return anon. Stay awake, or it will worsen your headache when I wake you again.”

And Josephine rustles away, skirts pressed and perfumed and pleasant. But Kimani can only bask in the powdery aromas for so long; she brings her hands to her face and smells that _smell._

And then she is not in her room. She is standing on a boat, a storm rocking it near to capsizing. The crew scrambles, trying to keep their vessel upright, their captain shouting to rival the storm. It is the unwieldy Waking Sea; Kimani has only crossed it once, and she remembers the journey in a haze of blood lotus smoke coughed up from her lungs.

But this is not her dream. Kimani looks around until she finds him, standing much like she but with his back to her. A short man with wet hair and thin limbs. Watching his own memory play out. Looking for himself, maybe. Trying to remember this moment that comes so vivid in dreams. Storms are often not so clear in the midst. Perhaps he wonders how he remembers it so well.

Kimani watches him. She’s been pulled into his dream and she doesn’t know why, but he is a simple man and she can feel it. The threads of this fantasy peek through what he doesn’t remember; the floorboards and lampposts, the back of some seaman’s head. She can pull any of these and be done.

But he has no magic, if she’s not careful, he could be hurt.

The man sets his hands on his hips, shrugging at the scene before him. Kimani’s never seen anything like it, a normal person observing their dreams for so long. Often, they get swept into the memory, become part of the re-enactment until something—anything, really—wakes them up. But this one decides to turn and look her dead in the face. He is elvhen; His own is so thin and fine featured that when he frowns it looks as though he melts. Kimani doesn’t move; he needs to adjust to her.

“You,” He yells above the angry ocean.

“Do I know you?” Kimani tries, speaking softly, and his little eyes go wide at the sound of her voice directly in his ear. “I’m sorry for this. I will make it right.”  She thinks he is calm, though his mouth hardens into a line. “Don’t be afraid.” Kimani hooks her fingers into a passing breeze where the threads of his dream are exposed. Thin and cold: strange then, that they offer some resistance when she pulls.

“Please,” she says to the elf, who watches her hand, “relax yourself. I won’t hurt you.”

He exhales sharply, and Kimani snaps his threads before he can change his mind.

“You have returned.”

Kimani is faced with Solas, standing over her.

“Shit.”

“Indeed,” Cassandra quips drily from the foot of the bed. Josephine and Leliana stand at the door, starting as Kimani sits up. She braces for the painful clench of muscle that stole her breath at Adamant, and looks to Solas when there is none. Her nausea, too, is gone.

“Forgive me, but I have told them.” Solas says.

Cassandra smiles faintly. “Not as though it was entirely a surprise, but… well—“

“No one was waking up as abominations, so we assumed you had no Dreamstalker aspirations,” Leliana finishes, oblivious to Cassandra’s glare. “You worked with us willingly in the beginning, Inquisitor. And you’ve been calm and reliable ever since. We saw no need to ruin your ruse. If it could be called that.”

“Don’t need to be called anything,” Kimani coughs, brushing Solas’ hand away when he steadies her rise to her feet. “No one asked. I did not tell.” But now they know. Figures. She’s already walked with Solas; it had been the first fallen domino. “We think that I’m phasing into dreams at random. The first was my mother’s. Less random, I think, because of my panic during Adamant. Tonight, a pure stranger. He was very cooperative.”

“Is it dangerous to those whose dreams you breach?”

“Is it possible he recognized you as the Inquisitor?”

Cassandra first then Leliana, their words nearly colliding. Josephine clutches her clipboard and waits, absorbing what is surely less information that she’s used to at once, but certainly stranger than her normal faire. All three are too far from Kimani; She walks to her desk to pour a cup of wine, waving them over.

“If I were a worse _somniari_ , the man might be dead,” Kimani admits, “as it is he will have a headache, at best fleeting. At worse, he might be grazing in the garden’s elfroot patches. As for recognizing me, I’m sure he did and so he may be somewhere in Skyhold. But dreams are fleeting and he was no mage. I’d be surprised if he remembers me at all.”

“You sound certain,” Cassandra relaxes joint by joint, looking blearily at her and shaking her head at the offer of wine.

“The Inquisitor speaks truly of her talent,” Solas says.

“I am certain,” Kimani says simply. “I’ve been _somniari_ for twenty-one years. I’ve practiced the talent since I was sixteen. Not in other’s dreams,” She says hurriedly when women blanch, “In my own. And my mother’s, when we took turns.”

Josephine gasps, a little, feeble whistle that carries a thousand words. “Maker, this is _incredible_.”

“And it is under control. The phasing, that is. Twice now I’ve returned with little issue. And possession is something I haven’t lost sleep over in years.” This, she says directly to Leliana. “Solas and I intend to investigate. And I have ways of containing myself to this side of the Veil…I ran out three days ago, but I’ll make more.” She adds sheepishly.

Cassandra actually cracks a smile, clapping Kimani on the shoulder.

“You are absolutely frightening and if I didn’t know you already, I might have to lock you up.”

“Again.”

Cassandra snorts, nodding. “ _Again.”_

...

 

 

The portcullis rises and they step into Skyhold, and Bull has to laugh.

He has to laugh, because for a moment between Adamant and this creaky, old gate, neither of the two people he sees in the courtyard existed.

There aren’t words to mean the same as the way southerners mean “bliss,” in Qunlat. But the desert—the monotony of demolition, the camaraderie with his boys and the Knight-Captain Rylen’s men, even Cullen, who melded easily into the daily hum of work under relentless heat?

Problem is, the word is just as easily ascribed to the sensation of the boss’s lips against his, the delicate flick of her bitter tongue, the heat of her breath on her cheek. So he has to laugh. He is emotionally and linguistically unable to wrap himself around her. Why is it that she is a fixture beneath his skin? This little, scary-eyed, secret-keeping _mage_? There are prettier women—prettier people—with less claws.

And then he sees her after so many weeks away and she’s just as ridiculous as when she left him. Tall and curvaceous and flitting about like a pixie, or a shadow, her hollow eyes lit when she sees them returned. Her happiness is her map. Happy is how he likes to see her, even though her anger sets every nerve in his body alight.

He has to get her out of his system, has to stop how he follows her form as she disappears into the Undercroft’s outer door. She’s too far away to grab and strip and _have_ , to clear her out the most thorough way possible, so he tries to start with something else. 

Kimani—the mage, the Inquisitor, the Boss—is the first reason he laughs as he and his Chargers, and Cullen and his men, return to a bustling, welcoming Skyhold.

Gatt, standing just outside of _Herald’s Rest_ with his arms crossed over his thin chest and a tired expression on his thinner face, is the second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I've changed it so that Gatt shows up in Skyhold before they head out the to the Storm Coast. I figure it's feasible, and it would make sense that if the Ben-Hassrath have doubts about Bull they'd send a second to get a bit of info, even if only withing the time frame of facilitating this potential alliance. I don't plan on any major changes to the storyline, so don't yell at me. Or do....in a comment. ;)
> 
> (but seriously, I don't bite and I love questions, comments, concerns.)


	14. Shadow of the Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gatt, you short-lived numbskull. Bull, you perfectly confused asshole. Kimani, good job. No one gets torched. Everyone lives.
> 
> ...everyone lives.

Bull doesn’t remember Gatt as being so mean. He hates mages, sure, and when he explains how he triggers the Boss Bull must admit it is clever, but it is not some dedication to the cause that compels him to Skyhold. Nor is it any explicit order from higher-up; He  _might_  come to Skyhold, but he was not orderedhere.

The Ben-Hassrath know enough of the Inquisitor to send word of a potential alliance, after all.

“What you’ve described in your reports—what she is--is most likely  _somniari_ , friend, “Gatt says, smoking his pipe. The contents are harmless and neither sharpens nor dulls him; just a habit. Bull remembers its fledgling beginnings in the flooded plains of Seheron, how a softer Gatt rolled leaves in paper and smoked like it was blood lotus, smiling when he coughed. Now, he has a pipe. “We shouldn’t fuck with  _saarebas_ , much less  _somniari_ , unless the fuckers know how to heel.”

“And I’m assuming she does.”  _No one sent you_ , Bull thinks with both irritation and amusement. He can see the cracks in his old friend as though sunlight shines through them. Soon, for Gatt; he’d be trekking back to the home base to get himself fixed up.

“She was  _kind_ ,” Gatt says in genuine disbelief, chewing on smoke as he nods. “Might have helped that she didn’t recognize me, but she was kind. You never mentioned that.”

“Didn’t think it important. She’s kind, yeah, and I’ve seen her tear things apart. Not so kindly.”

“She didn’t tear  _me_  apart. Though my head is splitting still. Anyway, it worked out fine. You can give her the offer yourself, if you like. I’ll meet you all on the Coast if she agrees.”

Bull raises his brow, chuckling. “Think she’ll forget you? She’s kind  _and_  keen. You better make yourself known before then, unless you want to learn how you smell roasted.”

“I’m not too interested in learning that particular bit, no,” Gatt says thoughtfully. He’s nothing but sharp angles, now.

“Wouldn’t want to start an alliance on the wrong foot.”

“True, true. It could also be a warning, my reveal.  _Look what we can do to you.”_

At this, Bull is quiet. No, his friend was not so mean in Seheron. Not the kid he picked up off slavers. Angry, sure. Explosive? As the wind blew. But the meanness is new.

He thinks the Boss will withhold her kindness next they meet, if only a little.

…

 

Kimani brings to Dagna hair and blood and skin.

Perhaps the arcanist call tell her what lurks in her skin or shed some light on why this time, there are none of the physical ailments burned into her memory from Adamant. She’ll never forget the feel of her muscles clawing at her bones, trying and failing to drag themselves up and out of her skin; that there is  _nothing_  this time does not soothe her as it might.

Dagna, left after Kimani’s return to Skyhold and returned with Cullen, fusses over her workspace as though she hasn’t just come back. Her bright voice echoes off the walls of the Undercroft before being lost to the wind, stolen for its warmth. She draws Kimani’s blood into a small glass vial, peels a bit of skin from around the wound made on her forearm.

“Pretty,” She murmurs, looking to Kimani for permission before cutting the lock of hair she’s chosen. ‘”And you want me to test them how I will what I’ve brought from Adamant?”

Kimani nods. “If you can.”

“Well,  _sure_  I can. I test for different magics. I’ve tested liquids, and I’ve tested skeletons. I can test these pieces of you,” The arcanist giggles, looking at the vials she holds with a sort of confused amusement. “I’ll get it to you as soon as I can, Inquisitor.”

“You’re not going to ask what for?”

Dagna shrugs. “I’m about to find out, aren’t I? I love a mystery. Like a puzzle. Don’t worry about it, boss lady. I call for you when it’s done.”

Kimani likes Dagna’s enthusiasm, likes the bell-tinkle of her laughter and the shine in her big, brown eyes. She doesn’t like the hollows beneath those pretty eyes, or the frightening suppositions the arcanist makes in her reports from Adamant, but they will speak on these things soon enough.

First, Kimani’s dreams. Funny that a Dwarf may soon know more about them than she does.

She emerges from the Undercroft to an afternoon that renders Skyhold lethargic, the guardsmen at their posts swaying in unison to an unheard lullaby. She walks the grounds in full regalia save for the gray metal of her light armor, her image straddling the fence between mage and warrior. Kimani prefers this fence to being engulfed in the costume of her proper station. When she does wear the robe, she hears echoes of “Enchanter” where she would rather hear nothing at all. Luckily, the soft trousers and tunic hardened by leather brigandine and her ceremonial sword suit her better than any of the mage’s robes given her since becoming Inquisitor.

Kimani laughs to herself, hollow and reflexive. No one, even as she’d proven herself twice over, would appreciate the Inquisitor’s wearing her magehood over her shoulders, and yet they won’t stop sending her robes. They think, too, that she does not carry a staff in Skyhold for their benefit, but Kimani only finds it cumbersome. Stronger, yes. Awkward,  _yes_. Nor does she think she’ll need it for the casual stroll around her fortress, whether she comes upon the oft-worried about abomination or other corruption, a full-blown demon, or the last thing on her mind as she keeps an eye out for the man from the dream.

He’s somewhere in Skyhold, she’s certain. And she’ll find him:  Cole does not answer when she calls to him, but if he shows up before she finds the elf, she will convince him to help her.

“Where are you, little man?” Kimani hums, enjoying the sharp, crackling echoes of her heeled boots on cobble paths. “I need to find you and set this straight.” A normal person’s dreams are easy in, easy out, but the implications once awake have stayed Kimani’s hand more times than not. She fights a sick feeling at the thought of how, if the phasing continues, she will have no choice but to dabble in dreams.

Spirits, she is tired of being forced.

“Inquisitor.”

Kimani is making way towards the infirmary camp when she hears a faintly familiar voice and smells a very familiar smell. Her breath comes ragged as the scent blooms in her nose, strong and distinct and lingering: Leather and heat, some spice from a land beyond her meager knowledge enveloping her like an embrace, the closest she gets to the feeling of drowning, until Adamant—

“Oh no,” Kimani breathes, turning to the voice. _There_  is the face with features like bird’s bones, his eyes a stormier green than the turbulent waters of his dream. Here, too, is the elf she’d bumped in the night. She slips her dagger from its hilt. “No.”

The last thing on her mind is a Ben-Hassrath agent. She realizes she's been going about things all wrong for some time, and her heart twists in her chest.

“I was told by Hissrad to reveal myself immediately,” the man continues, bowing slightly at the waist. His brown hair is straight and shaggy, hiding his ears and curling slightly at the nape of his neck; it slims his face even further as he smiles. “As it might be the only way I’m not killed. I am an agent of the Ben-Hassrath, sent as envoy to an offer. You may call me Gatt.”

Kimani can only stare as he waits for her response, sharp eyes taking in the minutiae of her expression and reading stories on emotions she only feels roiling in the pit of her belly. The anger has not made it as far as her face. She has been practicing. It might yet deceive an Orlesian, but not this man. He sees.

 _Like a goat,_  she thinks, turning the dagger slowly in her palm. Gatt casts it a fleeting glance, but does not move.  _He dragged me into dreams by the ankles like a goat._

Because of him. Because of Bull.

She should simply surrender the rest of the day to nausea.

“Inquisitor, may I-“

"No," Kimani murmurs, and Gatt tenses too late; he cannot read her movements if she does not move, and the burst of fadestuff hits him so hard that his grunt of surprise is lost as he meets the ground. "I won't be talking to you."

The half concealing shadow of the wall does well for her; she watches Gatt a moment to be sure he's out, though he must be. The thick copper taste on her tongue is evidence enough. This new skill is not for when she's angry, and she has pulled a little too hard.

“Bull, you asshole,” she whispers, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes.

"Yeah.” Kimani jumps at the gravelly voice. “I figured he'd get some of that fire either way," Bull says as he rounds the corner like a mountainous ghost. "But I've never seen that trick before."

When he tries to come near her she jumps back, a protective barrier springing up around her like flames leapt to life. Kimani has known her share of tricksters and has been tricked more times than she’ll ever admit. It is tiring, looking into a face she’s trusted and seeing a villain. She tightens her grip on the dagger.

Bull, like his counterpart, casts it a cursory glance, and sighs. "Ah, Boss…No." He comes slowly to the edge of her barrier, tilting his head as he looks down on her. "I'm not here to hurt you."

And there it is; the soft of his voice and the cirve of his neck as he looks at her. Small things. Silly thing, that it makes her feel so open.

Kimani curses her breath for catching, her feet for rooting where she stands. She could reach out, break the protection, touch him.  _Touch him_. She can see it; pushing him, step by step on to his bed. Crawling over him, whispering what she dare not even think to herself. Kissing him, properly, until heat and hardness win out over what feeble barriers they still manage. Fucking The Iron Bull in the light of the moon through his shitty ceiling.

But she’s sick; she can feel it bubble in her throat.

"Your friend  _manipulated_  my magic," she says finally, letting the only important truth fill the space between them. " _My_ magic. What would you call that, if not hurting me?"

When Bull frowns, it is almost apologetic. "We had to check. After Adamant, after what I saw you do, or what could be done to you, we needed to know if you were still safe. Viable."

Punches, one after the other, to her twisting gut. "Viable. As?"

"As an ally. The kind we'd give an official alliance to." Here he produces a neatly folded missive and holds it out to her.

Kimani raises her eyebrows. "Guess I passed."

"Knew you would. You’ve shown me as much.”

"And that's my mistake,” she says sadly, scratching errantly at her head. “I gave you too much when I only meant to give you a little. I shouldn't have given you anything. That's my mistake."

Bull shakes his head. "Nah, Boss. You give yourself too much credit, and I mean that in the best way possible. We would have ended up here every time."

At this, she laughs bright and sharp. “Alright then, Hissrad.”

She has to remember to breathe. She has to remember that she cannot fall apart here, that she must be beyond falling apart. Kimani takes the offered missive, opening it. It is succinct and blandly translated, much like the missives they’ve been receiving from Bull since Haven.

It is true what he says: an official alliance offering its military strength, more reports, more support on the ground, et cetera: she folds it back along the same creases and then once more, sliding it beneath the top buttons of her brigandine.

She is glad for the offer. Truly, it is like an anchor on her chest.

“Alright then,” Kimani repeats, gesturing to Gatt. “You might want to do something with him until he wakes. Have some elfroot ready for what will be a worse headache than he must have had this morning. As for this,” She pats where the letter lies snug against her bosom, “Expect an answer tomorrow.”  

 _I was told from the beginning,_ she thinks, walking away from him. She’ll take the offer straight to her Council, waste no time in arguing them down.  _I was told. He told me._

But that is the way of things; one may not always listen. Consequences arrive as they are called, as they are given the path to walk. Kimani has tried to be careful, but she supposes]that it's right about time the responsibility burrowed in her palm claims yet another piece of her for itself.

 

...

 

Bull survives Seheron for so long because he knows everything. He makes it his business to know everything. The way the wind blows and how people smell and how they think. And how they think that they think. How they think other people think that they think of themselves.

All of it. It churns through his head like well-oiled cogs on a lift. There are no strings to catch in the mechanism. It always works so smoothly, until it didn’t. But it only took one good time in the thick of the swamps for him to understand he needed to be fixed.

Shit. He hasn’t tasted the Island on his tongue since before Haven’s burning, but one look at Gatt salts his mouth and pulls memories up from where they lurk in shadows. A thousand images in the blink of an eye. Ten extra years on his bones.

He feels just as heavy overlooking the imminent death of his boys on the Storm Coast. Thick, like the Boss had said after Adamant.

And the Boss, she needs to tell him one way or the other before the Chargers are slaughtered. This he cannot handle, and he knows it; his boys might die on an order but not for  _lack_  of one. Not for an uncertainty. He’ll march straight back to Qunandar on Gatt’s heels if that was the case, for his re-education. Again. Already, he can feel himself coming undone in the same feeble way that had ended his spectacular run in Seheron. Not good.

The Boss is frozen, her face screwed in horror at him.

Irrelevant; she needs to move, to open her mouth and give the fucking order. The  _order_.

Suddenly her hand rests just above his, trembling fingers curled against the cool ivory horn. Then, she pushes his hand roughly into his face as though she really means to push him away, away, and over the cliff.

“Sound the fucking retreat,” she whispers, her eyes now glued to the potential tragedy before them. She starts pacing, hands clasped behind her back, and Bull has a flash of what she may have been like in her Circle, the young Enchanter with the serious eyes and cloudy hair.

He blows with all he’s got. Then he does the rest of his job.

Gatt is shooting curse after curse at him and the Boss and the Boss, well, she’s got options in the palms of her hands; one is fire and the other is fadestuff and she’s encased Bull in a protective barrier and it is cool. It smells like the crisp twang of her skin. He wedges himself between two lit flames, blocking the Boss like a wall. His job. His only one, now.

The boys get out in time, rendering the Dreadnoughts forfeit. Bull really does hate these runs.

He can see Gatt’s lips moving beyond curses and he knows that he should hear the last things his old friend may ever say to him, but it’s shit. It’s all shit.

“Bull.”

He can feel her magic change before it retreats and it is familiar to him. But Bull doesn’t want to hear her, either. When he turns, he looks over her head to the Dreadnought. When it explodes, he watches fire dance on water and feels exceptionally numb.

Dreadnoughts don’t sink because they are masterpieces from beginning to end. There’s never been enough in qunlat to fully realize that. Bull has long since decided the southern languages are good enough for some things.

Once it’s over, Bull walks past a simmering Gatt and away from the Boss. He thinks she won’t kill Gatt. She is fiery, but not cruel. The patter of her footsteps comes soon after as he anticipates; she stays some paces behind him and when he stops to catch her up, she brushes past him, rigid.

But his boys are alright. He can build from there.

Bull breathes deeply until his lungs are bursting, letting his head fall back. The air feels good. The rain feels good. Not much else feels good.

Bull has seen an abyss in the Fade, has seen the kinds of dangerous things that want to swallow you into the void. He thinks now he knows now what it might feel like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to make Demands of the Qun feel a tad original. Didn't walk through the in-game scenes because we literally know them by heart. Hopefully this was a decent rendition and don't worry; the next chapter is connected to this directly. Hit me with the questions, comments, concerns.


	15. Palimpsest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW, but closer to the end. The aftermath of Demands of the Qun.
> 
> Kimani and Bull don't come to much resolution so much as understanding. Which, clearly, is enough for them to get busy.

“You’ve missed the bed by quite a bit.”

“...Why are you here?”

The road back is always quicker and before long, it seems, Kimani can pull off her boots and enjoy the horrendously expensive rugs of her quarters as they caress her sore feet. The smell of the sea is still in her nose, the taste of salt eternal at the back of her throat. She should fall into bed, dirt and all, and sleep for days until she can wake up without remembering her second, unfortunate trip to the Storm Coast. She would rather think of Halamshiral until the date of the ball. She’d rather suffer through a thousand gown fittings, corsets pulled to suffocating.

But she pulls off her traveling gear, dropping her staff and sword and kicking off her boots in a straight line to her tub for the most perfunctory bath she’s taken since coming to Skyhold. She rubs her lotions in carelessly, pulling a short and roughly-hewn shift over her head as she falls instead into her overstuffed desk chair, eyeing what seems to be a return-gift of wine. It is blood-dark and most certainly dry and Kimani thinks someone has alerted Josephine of her sour mood; there are chocolates, nutty and Antivan, in a delicate glass dish next to a new, slimmer goblet rimmed in gold.

It _is_  news, then. So why  _he_ stands now at the top of her stairs is a mystery.

Bull smiles before breaking the long silence. “First words you’ve spoken to me since “Sound the fucking retreat.” Impressive.”

Kimani pours herself a drink slowly, drawing another length of silence. Because she is Inquisitor. Because she can. “Impressive to you, maybe. To me? Child’s play. I once didn’t speak to anyone for a year, and then some.  _Sans voix,_  one little girl called me.” Circle memories are always sharp either in imagery or sound, and this one is simply a chorus of high-pitched voices calling her a silly name.

“And the rest?”

Kimani puts the goblet to her lips, taking a sip of warm, heady wine. “Sanwa. None else had a good handle on Orlesian, you see.” She tilts her head as he lets realization show on his face. “Yes. That’s what the Nightmare called me in the Fade.”

Bull nods. “I see.” She waits for another question, another delay, but he falls silent.

“You’re not here because I ignored you, Bull. Nor do you care what children called me twenty years ago. What do you want that can’t wait til tomorrow?”

“To know where we stand.” He lets the layers of his words peel away into the air, brushing against her skin one by one, before continuing. “To know if my boys still have their usual roofs over their heads of if we should get packing before we overstay our welcome.”

“Ah. This is about your employment,” Kimani straightens in her chair, crossing one long, bare leg over the other under her desk. Not the easiest thing, putting on her official mask when she isn’t even wearing her  _nice_  nightgown, but she can manage. “If I’d wanted to fire you, you wouldn’t have been allowed back in Skyhold. I would have paid the Chargers through the season, and then I would have offered Krem a contract without you. He would deny it, since Krem is nothing less than your son, and I would wish them well. Is that all?”

Kimani realized early that Bull does not like being patronized. No one really likes being treated so, but Bull has never hid his distaste for it the way he does most everything else. A vein in his great neck jumps, but only twice, maybe three times. It is easy to miss. But if he wanted, she knows he could hide it.

“That must not be all,” Kimani sighs, her words full of unintentional softness. “Then tell it bare, Bull, and don’t make it about them if it’s not about them.”

“I need to know where  _we_  stand.” He repeats, hand loose on the railing. He does not come off the stair but he doesn’t need to, to be in the room; he is huge. And…antsy? There is something about this stillness that is hesitant. Kimani takes a sip of wine before she speaks again, is tempted to slowly unwrap a chocolate.

“You stand there,” She says, gesturing. “You stand apart. As you always have, even with my magic curled around your fingers. Even…even with my tongue in your mouth. And I stand here.” Kimani makes a show of rising, coming around to the front of her desk and resting a hand on her ceremonial sword. Never mind her shift barely touches her knees, or that her feet are bare; she stands tall. “I also stand here.” She takes a few steps closer. “And here.” A few more. “And all over there,” She gestures to the giant map of southern Thedas she’s had mounted on the wall behind him. “I stand where I’m needed and where I want and I bring all of myself with me. Every time. Perhaps that’s a bad idea.”

“It is.”

“Why are you  _here_?” She asks, snapping. “Again, do not make it about our thin friendship. Don’t make it about the Chargers.” Kimani doesn’t know what she wants from him, but there is more relief than irritation when he steps fully into her room, rounding the banister and coming hesitantly onto the wide center rug.

She is sick of him; She wants him closer. Kimani groans to herself, biting her tongue in distress.          

“It is  _all_ about them,” Bull insists. “You understand what happened on the Coast, I won’t insult you by thinking otherwise. I made a choice.”

“Hesitantly, and after making another choice of which I’ll just assume  _you_  understand.”

“Yes,” Bull nods. “I do. But I didn’t know for certain what Gatt would do to you. That part wasn’t me.”

“It was your scent,” she says softly.

“It was a good idea,” Bull nods, “and I’ll stand by that. And the information that made it possible was me. It was…I didn’t suggest it. I wouldn’t…” He falters when she looks at him sharply, saving him from a horrible lie. “Fuck. It’s all shit, anyway.”

“It was a good idea.” Kimani echoes, ignoring his last words with which she can only agree, because she doesn’t want to agree with him right now. “In case I become an abomination on the way to the tavern. Or the smithy.”

“Or during a bad dream. Or a very good one. It does no one any good for you to think you’re safe—“

“You have  _no_  idea what I think of myself,” Kimani hisses, closing her eyes against the red tail-ends of a useless anger. “None of you do. Not Cassandra. Neither Dorian, nor Solas. All any of you know is what you see. What I give you. You cannot… _anticipate_  a language that you do not know, that you’re afraid of.” She takes a deep breath to still herself. “You don’t have the vocabulary to suggest a thing about my magic.”

“I only mean that you are dangerous,” Bull says calmly, still as stone at the edge of the rug. Her fire casts dancing orange light that blends into the softer, pinker shades of sunset come through her balcony doors, and it is the only good thing in the room.

Kimani laughs, flinging her hands. “ _In-fucking-deed_. I’ve been aware since I was eight that I was dangerous. Before I found any bit of finesse, before I understood what lurks behind mages’ skins, in  _somniari’s_  heads. Everyone thinks it is some gamble we win to control our powers. It is a skill as much as your sword is, or your lying. I certainly  _better_  be dangerous. I fucking practiced at it.”

Kimani glares, and Bull stares unflinchingly back. Only now does she realize he’s come unarmed, not even with the familiar leather of his harness, the only metal on his person glinting where he misses an eye, and where his ankle is braced.

“You are even more dangerous than me, except it is only to yourself.”

This seems to amuse him. “Oh?”

“What would you have been if you’d let.” Kimani stops, pressing her marked hand to her breast. In her mind’s eye she can see them all dead. Smiling, happy Krem. Sweet Dalish, who is not a mage. Grim. Rocky. Stitches. Skinner, the bitch, though she sometimes comes to stand by Kimani on watch, silent and glowering, without reason. “What would you have been?”

 _She_  knows what he would have been: Enemy. Villain. Fired.

“Heartbroken,” Bull admits quietly. This is also what she thinks, but does not expect him to say. “But, part of a structure that would mend it with stronger stuff. Controlled. Safe.” His eye flicks to her, then looks beyond her again.

“Safe. You know, I once knew a man who died of a broken heart. We are so fragile.” She says this mostly to herself, then takes a bold step towards him. “So what are you now?”

He is quiet but Kimani waits, and the moments pass slowly until he finally looks at her again. She realizes it, then; a flash of her answer, the minute and momentary softening of his grim face. The fall of his chest at a hardly-contained sigh. The nervous flex of his hands. Not antsy; brought low. Bull shakes his head a little in disbelief.

“You could ask me so many things…”

“I only want one thing.” But she’s lost the hardness in her voice, somewhere in-between his revelation at a heart. At a hurt. Because she takes another step towards him, and another. She is close enough to smell…

Kimani’s brow furrows sharply; she folds her arms tightly against herself, biting the inside of her check to keep from making a sound, and fails, a muffled whimper escaping with her sharp exhale of breath.

He smells like honeysuckle. Like the creams she had jokingly given, and he had taken in kind. He smells like her, along with the the faint note of some spice she doesn’t know. That is his.

“Just one thing?” Bull steps closer, a faint, pleased smirk at her recognition softening him further. She jumps at the rough tips of his fingers when they skim her elbows, and he holds her by them until she calms. She is suddenly nothing but sparking nerves at the slide of his hands up her arms, until he hits the short sleeves of her shift and then further, until he can lay one large palm against her neck, blunt thumb stroking soft lines along her throat. “Just the one, huh.”

Shit, It’s all shit.

Kimani lifts her chin and Bull extends his caresses as far down as the slit in her collar allows. “The Chargers are the only thing you care for, and you have them now.” She presses a finger into his stomach accusingly, but it’s useless. It only works if he isn’t touching her. “And you can go anywhere you like.”

“Yeah.” Bull murmurs, his other hand slipping up into her hair. “I can.” He begins massaging her scalp, and it is strange; her eyes roll shut, her hands slide over his belly, her breath catches as he leaves her neck to wrap an arm firmly around her waist. “I can’t get you out of my fucking head. And I need to. I need to try.”

It is an admission, it could be an insult, and still she looks up at him. “Bull.”

“Do you want me to let you go? Do you want me to leave?” Bull asks, stilling his hand in her hair.

“No. No. I need to show you something.” She nearly loses her resolve when he thumbs at her brow, smoothing pieces of hair behind her ears.

At her request, he grunts. “Alright.”

“I’ve been practicing, learning new things with Solas. You need to see it.”  _Before we fall even further, before bad ideas take shape and we…I...can’t come back from it._

“A lesson.”

“A warning,” Kimani insists as she begins to pull from deep in her belly. The fadestuff comes slowly, slipping up out of her pores like mist, and Bull tenses minutely against her as green vapor coalesces into fingers, stroking his skin. “You once said I was smitten with my own magic.”

“And you said you must be, to live with it.” Bull holds her gaze even as the fadestuff creeps up his shoulders. He shudders. It is beyond the easy summoning of her hands, now; she has learned to spread it so she can light herself like veilfire, and it spreads the whispers thin too, so she can barely hear the echoes from Adamant. It is her shot at control, just in case.

Bull is strung taut, but he holds on to her.

“You can let me go,” She murmurs; he has given her an out and now, so has she.

Bull scoffs. “This is why I need you out of my head,” he mutters, moving only to cup her jaw. He rubs his thumb along her lower lip and she sighs fadestuff into the air. Bull exhales sharply, the sound trilling into a growl, and says words she doesn’t understand.

“What did you say?” She asks, sliding her hands up the ragged length of his chest. He is so much, so covered in stories and tragedy and warning, and she touches him like he is only skin to be caressed, his gray coloring aglow in the fadestuff’s light.

“Later,” Bull whispers, and kisses her. It is not gentle.

He is  _hungry_  and all she can do is cling to him, hooking her arms around his neck so he lifts her, her feet brushing his shins until she wraps her legs around his waist. She pushes back with the same need, pressing into him until his heartbeat overpowers the sound of her own, nipping his bottom lip until he groans, sliding one hand around his thick neck and squeezing, gently.

“Bull,” Kimani whispers between kisses. “Bull.” She snakes her tongue between his lips. The tension in her body melts like ice as kisses her until she’s limp against him and holding on for dear life. She knew this would happen; she remembers from before. “Spirits.”

Bull chuckles, kneading her thighs. “Yeah.”

She is heat pooled low between her legs, against his stomach, and he is thunder in his chest, drum-beating to stampede speeds as he slides her shift up far enough to reach his hand underneath, blunt nails scraping against her bare back. The shift is all but useless bunched around her waist; he pulls it off and leans her back, sucking the skin of her breasts until she’s breathless and something takes hold of him so he slows, sighing over her heart.

Kimani is nothing but nerves shot by lightning, trembling against him. “Tell me.” But he shakes his head, nuzzling her breast until he catches the nipple in his mouth, and she gasps when he flicks his tongue.”

“Nothing,” he says around her.

“Bed, then,” she whispers, thrusting against him. Her smalls, she knows, are ruined, a useless barrier. “Or sofa. Or floor. I don’t care. But now. Ah,” She hisses when he bites beneath her breasts.

“Bad?” He mumbles, soothing the sting with his tongue.

Kimani shakes her head, the sharp sting of it lingering enough to heat her further. “ _Good,”_ she rasps, _“Bed_.” She thrusts again, hard as she can as she clings to him. Bull chuckles. “Please, Bull.”

“I put you down, and that’s it.” He kisses above her ribs, his stubble prickling her sensitive skin. She must have a scar there that she doesn’t remember.

“I am  _naked_ ,” she laughs, reaching up the back of his head to stroke the rough base of one horn so he sighs happily. “I am wrapped around you like your harness, and you—“ She’s cut off by her own whimper as Bull re-takes her breast in his mouth. “Bed, bed,  _bed_. I need to touch you. I need to…” She shudders as he moans against her, sending vibrations through her chest, and she pulls him up roughly by his chin. Her kiss is hard, all teeth and sharp breath and the desperate writhing against him that seems to finally, coax him into compliance. They move to the bed in a painfully slow lumber, and he tries to drop her onto the sheets. Kimani holds tight.

“I want to see you,” he says, breathing heavily. “Let me see you.”

“Come with me,” she retorts, bold. “And then.”

So he lowers them both onto her blankets, awash in the same smell he wears on his skin. Bull gets a hand between them, sliding her smalls off one leg at a time. Then he lay his forehead against hers, both hands near her head to slide into her hair.

“Ready?” He says, voice strained as she hooks her fingers over his belt, tugging at its buckles. Kimani holds his gaze, registering the feel of him around her. Warm and wanting, his breath precariously still.

They were not supposed to end up here. Or, maybe, they were.

Kimani pulls the belt loose, her hand sliding low.

“Ready,” she sighs, smiling as he curses. Finally,  _finally_. “Ready.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not fade out on y'all; emotional smut is in the next chapter. Don't throw tomatoes, I separated (most of) it out for people who aren't keen on the sexytimes.
> 
> Though I feel like most of yous are waiting for them to bang, which is cool, too.
> 
> Comments are great things. :D


	16. You Might Do Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ....and they bang. With feelings. And cute references to past chapters. NSFW. Enjoy.

He didn’t….

Nope, no. That’d just be a lie.

Bull lets her stroke him, even and slow, until the lie dissolves in his mind, until he comes back to focus and hears her shaky breathing in his ear. Until he hears his shaky breathing stuttering on a groan as she tightens her grip ever so slightly. He has half a mind to let her go, to let her touch him until he is undone, but that’s not what this is about. Bull curses and she laughs, stroking faster, her touch maddening and sure as she plays over him. Sliding lower to brush his balls. Rising back to rub slowly over his head.

“I have waited,” she whispers, biting at his chin. “For you. To be…” she sighs when Bull dips his head to return the bite on her neck. She is terribly sensitive there, rising to him, her grip on him loose for only a second and he takes advantage, sitting back on his knees and catching her wrists. Slowly, he pins them above her head, watching her emotions play out on her face; confusion, the first waves of resistance, more confusion as she tries his hold and finds, maybe, that she likes it.

Perhaps it should have come before, but now is better than later. “There is a word. You say it, and I stop what I’m doing. I stop everything I’m doing with no question. We stop.” Bull says lowly, letting his voice growl. She shudders, curling her nails into his hand in anticipation.

“You plan on doing many things to me,” she says, more comment than question, squeezing her thighs around his knees. Shit; he hadn’t imagined her so demanding. Which is funny, because she’s the Boss.

Bull lets his gaze roam over her body, at the faint indentation of new muscle built through battle and practice, of the softness that rounds out her hips and makes heavy her breasts and brings her stomach to a delightful rise beneath her navel. Bull wants all of it. He nods.

“As many things as you’ll let me. Now, and later.”

Her stomach grows taught, her eyes wide. “The word?”

“ _Katoh_. Say it for me.”

“ _Katoh_.”

“Good. And…and what did you wait for me to be?” He thinks he knows. He  _thinks_  he knows.

Kimani swallows. “Safe.”

 _Shit._  Bull presses her wrists into the bed, leaning over her until she is completely covered by him. The fire is warm on his back; if he looks up…

He doesn’t want to look up. Everything he wants tonight lies in the woman writhing beneath him, impatient. But he will savor this. Bull presses her wrists together once more so that when he releases her, she keeps them where they lay, watching him expectantly with lip caught between teeth. Bull caresses her heated skin, from her reddened neck to the silky skin between her breasts, cupping one before continuing over her stomach, curling his hand over one thick thigh.

Kimani huffs, “Are you going to pet me all night?”

“If I thought I could get away with it,” Bull admits, chuckling as he kisses her brusquely, dragging his nails along her inner thigh. She whimpers when he pets the damp, white curls of her sex, whispering his name when he presses against her clit. Circles emit more of his name and so he circles, dipping into her folds so that she calls him louder between breathless instructions, and Bull nearly comes from his own name when it catches in her throat. She is dripping, the sound lewd as he picks up speed and she forgets  _his_  instructions, pulling him to her for a sloppy, slow kiss. More moan than kiss; her nails digging into the back of his neck make his cock jump and he could bury himself in her now, fall into the white-hot of her depths, have her  _scream_  his name until she shatters.

But he is determined to take her slowly.

“Yes,” she hisses, when he finally slides one thick finger into her. She rocks herself into his hand, smiling against his mouth, tightening around him so he grunts. “ _Yes_.”

…

It is strange that she underestimates him, because he is so much.

Kimani’s head has fallen to the side, eyes open and unseeing, lips parted so the room knows only the sounds of her cries and the wet symphony between her legs. Bull has her knees to stomach, shaking legs sprawled over his horns. She hadn’t the breath or time, really, to laugh at the suggestion before he was helping her along, all the faster to press his lips against flesh that couldn’t possibly take any more.

There are two fingers in her, now, driving into her in pace with the attentions of his tongue and she is beyond instructions, beyond much of anything but keening his name.

Bull kisses her soundly before she’s bereft of his lips, and she bucks in protest.  _Not yet._

“Can you take another?” Bull asks, hoarse, and she barely recognizes his voice. She feels the tease of a third finger, hesitant. She is already full with his large hands but the thrill of being stretched with him—she knows he is preparing her, she’s touched him, she knows—has her nodding her head, whining a “yes.”

She feels herself come to a head as he stretches her, the pressure nearly too much when he returns his mouth to her sex, and when he strokes, when he sucks, when his moan vibrates through her like the plucking of a harp, she falls apart.

“That’s it,” Bull coos against her, stroking her relentlessly through it. “Shit, you are  _beautiful_.”

…

This is not a lie: The Iron Bull has miscalculated.

He is losing himself to a little mage woman, too hungry, to wanting, too soft with her praise against is ear, too much with her left hand firmly around his throat, her other arm flung carelessly over his shoulder as he slides into her. Slow to start, like everything else, and she is a dream of heat and satin around him. She is a trembling mess of smiles and dampness everywhere; her breasts shine, her stomach shines, the creases of her eyes shine. She is red all over, her brown skin beautifully flush so her silver stretchmarks glimmer like rivers at night. He knows he is so  _much_  for humans, little even when they aren’t. But he feels himself unraveling at the insistence of her tenderness when she opens her eyes to him; a hand, caressing his cheek as he thrusts into her, her thumb pressing against his bottom lip as her mouth falls open, the slow blink of her eyes as she gazes at him, smiling when he groans.

He doesn’t mean for that sound to go so long, or so loud, but it is pulled from him when she tightens herself, when she meets his thrust on a test, breath catching. She wants to swallow him up; that will take time.

They have time, if they are together in the morning. Bull has to stop himself from giving her names he think may fit, names that, hard as he’s tried, don’t fit anywhere else.

Too soon: He’s not even done here though he’s close, sweet pressure building low in his hips so he must work to hold her reverent gaze. How she can be so soft with her hand at his throat is beyond him. He relishes in it as her breath comes faster, as her affirmations come faster, as her legs tighten impressively around his waist.

“More,” she manages, eyes shut again, right hand pressed momentarily against her own mouth before hooking around his shoulders. “I need…I want…” She struggles over her breaths, caught somewhere Bull can pull her from if he’s quick about it.

He has never truly seen the Boss plead before tonight.

No, not the Boss. Not now.

“I’ve got you, Kimani,” Bull murmurs, and she jolts at the first sound of her name on his lips. Bull thrusts deep, dipping his head to suckle at her neck as he drives into her until the bed catches the rhythm.  _I’ve got you, I’ve got you, fuck me, I’d keep you_ … Bull needs her to shatter so that he can fall into his own demise.  _Come, kadan. Come._

When she does, she very nearly chokes him when her whole body clenches and that’s more than enough to give him the freedom he seeks.

They are both strangely quiet in their release, shuddering sharp grunts into the warm air. It is even quieter as they come down, as their ragged breathing breaks into soft sighs and gentle hums. Bull doesn’t realize he’s gripping her hair and it must hurt with how short it still is, so he kisses his apology. Kimani releases her hold on his throat, wrapping both arms around him to hold him close as she pants. She is shaking so hard that he can ignore his own trembling.

“Are you alright?” He murmurs against her wet cheek. She’s not…

She  _is_. So the nod is all he gets, lest her voice shatter the gentle satisfaction fallen over them. He takes the time to go through his checklist: it is perfunctory for him, a way he’d created in order to maintain his structure so far from home while keeping his bedmates safe.  _Pain?_  A head shake.  _Sore?_  Another.  _Stiff?_  An even more vehement “no.”  _Water?_  She only tightens her hold on him, momentarily oblivious to his softening inside her.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually manages, releasing, finally, his lower half and gasping as he slips out of her. Bull moves no further, only rests his face in the crook of her neck. Bliss, even as his arms begin to burn.

 _I have waited. For you._  She’d said. In complete seriousness. It raises his skin in goosebumps.

“Don’t be,” he mumbles. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay. I know.”

…

“Did it work?” Is how Kimani greets him in the morning. She is sore and tired still, and cannot think about the night until the question is answered. Bull’s sleepy gaze is confused.

“Did what work?” 

She waits as he takes a minute to realize she is not where she’d been when they, wiped clean and jelly-boned, had quietly settled into her bed.  Sometime in the night she’d edged herself to her favored side, propped among however many pillows, and now peers at him from over them. Bull’s body is magnificent; she thinks she could watch the rise and fall of his breathing all morning, trail the many scars as the sun hits them on its ascent into the sky. It has yet to reach the large ones on his chest, still shaded in twilight.

“You said you wanted me out of your head,” she explains as he yawns. “I…sex for you is a therapy, a need to be extinguished, yeah? So I thought…did it work?” She thinks she can hide the flare of her nerves in the pillows as Bull stares dumbly.

“That’s…you thought this the whole time?” He asks, sitting up.

“No,” she admits. “But I remembered, when…I remembered.”  She thinks, by the look he lets scamper across his face, that he knows when she remembered.

“Is that why you’re over there?”

Kimani shakes her head. “I can’t sleep flat.”

More quirks of his face; the beginnings of laughter, this time. “Right, right. Will you come here?”

“Did it work?”

“No,” he says simply, stretching his arm out to her. “If anything, it’s made it worse. Which is alright, really.”

Something bright blooms in Kimani’s chest, and she wants to smile wide, to blush. But she only looks away from him and nods, crawling out of her pillows and into his waiting embrace. Bull cradles her head to his chest, his heartbeat steady.

“No rampart walking this morning,” she says against his skin, and she feels him nod.

“But will there be cocoa?” He asks, the grin strong in his voice; Kimani has to laugh.

“‘Fraid not.”

A grunt. “Who needs it, anyway?” Bull shifts and she feels his lips press into her hair. She looks up at him and allows herself to smile at his tenderness, reaching up to kiss him gently, and then again, before settling back against his chest. This is good. She likes this.

The sun is on its way, but its slow climb is to their advantage; they have some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we all good? Yes?  
> Alright. :3
> 
> Comments, questions, concerns-- y'all know.


	17. Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things that happen before Halamshiral: Kimani gets some revenge she shouldn't have. In which Solas has the better plan. In which Iron Bull tries to make an assassination attempt into a present and it doesn't...really work. Not his fault. His almost-girlfriend has other issues.

Kimani begins dreaming of shipwrecks and thunderstorms, but these things don’t belong to her. Gatt’s dream creeps into her like some plague; She wakes up hungry and with a familiar heaviness on her skin. She’ll be walking, whether the corridor be quiet or bustling with echoes of “Inquisitor!”, and hear a crack of lightning, though the sky outside is clear. She tastes ozone at the back of her throat and it grates on her more than it frightens her; the end of the world makes the impossible commonplace.

Take, for instance, Dagna’s suppositions from her trek to Adamant ( _I was the mountain_ ). Take for instance her results from testing pieces of Kimani.

“Fade-touched. Like a piece of cloth. Or a rock,” Kimani says to confirm, hand over her mouth as she frowns. The little vials of her are blackened from the arcanist’s experiments, stacked in a small ceramic bowl nestled in Dagna’s hands. She’d tried to give them back to Kimani, who’d only stared after being diagnosed.

Dagna nods. “Like what they made your pretty black armor from, yeah.”

“Except for it’s not fabric or a rock. _I’m_ fade-touched.”

“…Yes? Think of it as the sort of magic in the palm of your hand, fused with the rest of you.”

 _Spirits, I’d rather not._ It’s not that it makes no sense, but that it’s too accurate. Too straightforward. Too simple. Kimani looks at a pleased Dagna, who’s now humming over her desk. “You don’t seem alarmed.”

“No,” the arcanist says, smiling. “It makes sense. Dreamers are super-Fade mages. A super Fade mage walked into the Fade, walked out, and some of it stuck. And…and fused/ You’re already a stronger magnet for demons. Perhaps it makes you a stronger magnet for other things. Besides, you’ve survived more than any person really should, not to mention…” She gestures at the Anchor, “so the fact that you’re a little bit Fade isn’t…alarming, Inquisitor. Not even the scariest thing about you. Oh, um, I mean I bet it isn’t, anyway. Um. Not that you’re scary.” Dagna blushes.

“And none of the others revealed anything similar.” Kimani tries to keep her composure, but flustered Dagna nearly drags a giggle from her throat.

“Not on second test. The Fade faded. Ha. But not on you.”

 _Well, I’m not dying. That’s some relief,_ Kimani thinks, thanking Dagna and blinking away spots from an errant strike of lightning. She wonders if Dagna would even understand if told about what’s happened to Kimani now. Maybe. Probably, but she keeps her mouth shut.

 Kimani closes her eyes against her irritation as soon as she reaches the stairs. She should have hit the Gatt harder when she had the chance.

...                                                            

“You are angry.”

Kimani and Solas stand in the version of Fade an apprentice might see at their Harrowing, all mist and jagged edges with eyes lurking in the fog. The air is stale and damp and the ground underfoot is not ground at all, not usually; if she catches it at the right time Kimani can look down and see soil or cobblestone, but otherwise? Abyss. Kimani remembers her own Harrowing in a flash of nausea, how everything was ever-changing, how the mage in charge of the ceremony not only knew what would dislodge her, but also hated her. She never figured out why.

“You want to talk about my being angry…here? Now?” She asks Solas, who looks happily at home.

“I would not bring it up if it weren’t practically searing my skin,” He replies coolly. “You are angry. Simmering. Tell me why.”

“That’s not part of our deal.” In truth they have no deal, not really.

Solas ignores her. “It is not about our newly minted Tal-Vashoth. You have…forgiven him.” He holds her gaze for a moment and when she doesn’t flinch, he smiles. “I am happy at your happiness, if that is to be the case. Your choices, as always, are your own.”

“Solas—“

“I do not mean to pry. But nothing else much angers you and it is not Halamshi-ah. It is about the elvhen qunari, is it not? Gatt?” Solas nods knowingly when she does not answer. Kimani wants to disappear into the mists. This is not what they came here to do.

“What are you after that can’t be done awake?”

“If it is Gatt,” Solas continues, coming closer. “I have a solution. A lesson, if you may, in protecting yourself. Some little vengeance.”

“We have come here for another lesson,” Kimani says coldly. The idea had occurred to her, if she assumes to know what Solas means, but she is above it. At least, she wants to be, but where forgiving Bull has been successful after time and will, seeking to forgive Gatt is impossible in her mind.

Kimani has not tasted the vengeance Solas speaks of since leaving her Circle. It is the reason she left. The memory…the memory sweetens her tongue, and it takes her by surprise.

Solas watches her silently. The Fade makes any mage sensitive, but _somniari_ —or Solas and Kimani’s mother, at least—can become near-psychic. He feels everything she puts out, filters is through his own senses, to produce either sharp responses or the silent, knowing look he gives her now. _I know what you’re thinking. I’ll leave it, but I know,_ it says.

Kimani prefers his words. She can bite back at those.

“The lesson we’ve come for, then,” Solas agrees, falling gracefully into an offensive stance. Kimani does the same, leaning into her right side. They stand, waiting for the other to strike. She can see yellow eyes multiply in the mist; they two of them are, after all, giving a show.

“ _You_ might want to start,” Kimani says, feeling a foreign sense of dread at too many eyes. How long had it been since little demons had made her nervous?

Solas shakes his head minutely. “That would defeat the lesson.”

So she curls her fingers around a thick cloud of mist and hurls it at him, to begin.

 

Later, she wakes up refreshed and with a letter newly slid under her door; she can hear light footsteps scurrying away as she approaches. Bull’s handwriting is over-neat and his words simple, but she smiles anyway.

_Meet me on the ramparts, your side. Wanna show you something._

The days since returning from the Coast had been crammed with preparations for Halamshiral. Kimani’s trip to the Storm Coast had taken time she didn’t really have, but Skyhold went on in her absence; she’s returned to a thousand and one things already prepared, packed, and simply waiting for her confirmation. Once she managed to spirit Bull from her rooms that first morning (it has hit home, finally, that a seven-foot horned man is never inconspicuous) it was Orlais, Orlais, Orlais. Kimani thinks a lot about masks when she isn’t hearing thunder.

She slips into simple breeches and tunic, too common for Inquisitor until she fits one of her better jackets over it. There’s no real reason to look in the mirror three times, to smooth her fabrics over her hips, but she does, and tries to think little of it; she and Bull have yet to speak about what’s happened between them. Which means nothing has happened, not really, nothing yet with its feet on the ground.

When she finds him on a stretch of empty rampart, he’s watching the sky blue as the sun rises.

“I see the sunrise every morning.” She calls to him, smirking. “And I see you most every day, even if the moment is fleeting. What is it you must show me?”

Bull turns, grinning sheepishly, one arm mid-raised in greeting, when two men rush past her wearing guard’s uniforms. She hesitates too long for that reason alone, watches one black dagger fly at Bull’s chest; immediately he hits one in the jaw, yelling concurrently for her to _stand down_. The intruders are little men compared to him but well-sized and tall compared to her, and he nearly splits one in half with his axe before tossing the other over the battlements. The dying man’s screams echo, forming words Kimani understands.

 _Vashedan Tal-Vashoth_ , _vashedan somniari_ , and other qunlat she doesn’t want to know.  

Bull is grunting and wiping at the blood on his chest. Muttering something about his soul. Something about choice. Kimani brings her hands to her face, jumping when she realizes they’re on fire: her nerves are shot. Ash, ready to be scattered in the wind; she doesn’t have the heart for it.

 For a moment, she’s cold with the fear that Orlais will be a lesson in heart failure.

“This,” she begins, unsurprised at the shake in her voice, “is the second time the Ben-Hassrath have infiltrated Skyhold.”

“I brought you here to see,” Bull says, lumbering over to her and wincing as he stretches the wounded arm towards the battlements.

“You wanted me to watch a failed assassination attempt.”

Bull frowns, hurt. “That…two regular men with baby daggers. _That’s_ what you think about when you imagine an attempt on The Iron Bull’s life? No, _that_ was a swearing in. Or a swearing out, I guess. They might even have had a badge engraved with “Tal-Vashoth” to give me but really, where would I pin it?” He chuckles, stopping when she barely cracks a smile. Her vision flickers and she sees, for a moment, nighttime storm clouds in the clear morning sky.

 “Listen, Boss,” Bull continues when she remains silent, “If I had told you they’d have made you so quick it’d be embarrassing, and then they’d have come for me when you, Cullen, Leliana, Josephine, _and_ Cassandra were gone. How do you think you’d have felt then?”

“Less like a puppet as I do now, pulled along by strings, or a piece on a game board.” Kimani closes her eyes a moment and the clouds, of course, stay gone when she opens them again. _This won’t do,_ she thinks _. Not here, certainly not in Orlais. This won’t do._

Bull makes an agitated sound before sighing and coming close to her, slowly. “I’m showing you the strings, Boss,” He says quietly. “I’m showing you them, cut. No more strings. On anyone.”

Kimani scoffs. No more strings. Perhaps for him.

He is bleeding freely, dark blood thick on his chest. A cut by his standards, but there’s a strange bluish tint lining the wound and she doesn’t think before reaching out to touch it, pressing further when he hisses.

“Poison?”

Bull nods. “Good thing I’ve been taking the antidote.” And then, “This is how it is, Boss. You don’t have to like games, but you have to play them. You’re going to fucking Orlais, after all. You want to end up fish fry?”

Kimani contemplates her training. Her masks. The familiar roil of her anger. She suddenly misses the wide open fields of the Hinterlands and the heady freedom they gave her, angry and in pain after waking from the Conclave, to find release.

“I’m not angry with you,” She says quietly. Bull shakes his head.

“Oh, I know what’s pissing you off. I admit I knew that would hurt, and I knew you stewed, but I thought…”

“That I was somehow beyond it?”

Bull shrugs. “Almost. You _are_ beyond it. Whether or not you choose to act like it is a different story.”

 Like she’s been hit in the _che_ st.“Spirits,” Kimani laughs, wide-eyed. “Fuck a man once and-“

“No, don’t do that,” Bull darkens. He reaches for her hesitantly, then runs his hand over her hair when she doesn’t move. “Please don’t do that.” He cups her jaw tenderly, thumbing lightly at her lips and it does not calm her, but she stills. “We haven’t even talked about it yet. You’re going to want to talk about it.”

Before Kimani can speak again, she hears the Ben Hassrath’s words ring in her head. _Vashedan somniari_ , Tevene used for her benefit. The cool feel of Gatt’s dream envelopes her then, like the embrace she denies Bull, stepping away. He lets his arms fall to his sides. She should tell him, she thinks. Maybe. But then he’d know what she might do, and there is nothing redeeming about it.

“Be sure to tell Leliana about all of his,” Kimani calls over her shoulder as she leaves, folding her guilt away as Bull lets her go without question.

…

Stopping a dream is as simple as tearing it apart.

Gatt's consciousness comes so easily; she thinks of him in the Fade, of his delicate face and murderous glare and it’sanger at these things that eventually guides her. It’s her anger that leaves a trail, lit like the sun and twice as hot.

(Asha will be disappointed in her, she knows. Kimani will not face her easily after this.)

Gatt seems to be plagued by this single dream. Kimani stands on deck as barefoot as she sleeps, her breeches flapping in the vicious wind; her clothes are drenched through almost immediately. The storm unfolds before her eyes clearly as she watches the seamen scramble for control of their vessel before the ocean claims it. But it is already lost.

Kimani sees Gatt standing, again, some ways apart. But he's only standing. Not scrambling, not falling into the scene, same as before.

" _Vashedan somniari_ has a ring to it," she says and Gatt spins around, glaring. "I don't mean to intrude. You like this dream, Gatt. You keep having it. You keep watching it.”

Gatt's mouth hardens into a thin line, but Kimani doesn't need him to speak. She observes the sky, sees rends in the wind where the dream still runs thin, but there are less of them this time. "You must be looking for something. I suppose the Qunari _do_ have my kind if you can manage this. Do you really sew their lips shut? How do they teach you, if so?" At this her voice goes hard, bitter, offering Gatt some idea of what burns beneath it.

More silence. The look on Gatt’s face could kill but he'll have to come nearer to try, no matter how futile the wish.

Kimani shrugs then, lifting her hands in mock helplessness. She feels herself grow giddy and wild with the scene, like the rocking ship beneath their feet, except she is so horribly in control. "Appealing to emotion would not be fruitful, as you are meant to have none, so I can’t get you guilty. That would be too simple a vengeance, not worth the energy it took to get here. I _could_ render you mindless, rid the Ben Hassrath of another soldier. I could kill you.” It’s both sickening and thrilling to threaten him thus; both feels come from the fact that she _can_ do these things. She has done these things.

She sees darkness- darker than black, than the night this dream thrashes about in- creep in the edges of the dream, but it doesn’t register like it should. Like a warning.  

“Then again,” Kimani goes on, “that is barbaric, and I am supposed to be striving for finesse. Now that I have the taste of you, I could simply come calling every so often. Become your personal ghost."

Demons come differently for different people, but she can hear them as they begin pressing against the thin structure of this dream. Gatt pales.

"You thought yourself clever, one upping the fucking mage, I bet. Well,” She lifts her arms out to the sides, grinning. “Look what she can do.”

This time, when she removes herself from the dream it is not gentle; she does not pull gently at the open seams. No, Kimani grabs at fully-formed dreamscape—a swath of the boat’s rope, naturally—and pulls has hard as she can. She barely feels the hands that grab her waist, or the familiar chuckle of a throaty, distorted voice vibrate the air.

And then Solas is behind her and black surrounds them. Pure black, seamless, until the Nightmare’s eyes open to them, creased with a smile they cannot see.

Solas holds her to him fiercely, almost hurting. “Do you see that?” He hisses into her hair. “Do you see what nearly had you?”

Kimani is wide-eyed; she can’t feel anything, nothing from the Fade in this empty space, but she nods.

“Did you forget?”

She shakes her head. _Sanwa, sanwa,_ the Nightmare whispers, but it does not materialize past its yellow gaze.

“It’s not him. Not that Nightmare,” she whispers.

“The same way it’s not me, finding you in someone else’s dream.” Solas says wrily. “You are lucky.” When he grunts, the empty space is filled with light, and they land with a thump on hard ground.

“What is this?” Looking around, though, she knows; she can see the Chantry doors from where she lay, though the mist is heavy, closed shut and pristine as though they hadn’t been burned down. Leliana’s tent is not far from her feet; just over the little plateau is the roof of her cottage, small and lovely as it had been. Haven. He’s brought them to Haven. Kimani brushines the ground with her fingertips before she stands. _Haven._ She misses it terribly, misses it more than she thought she would.

“That is not how we find vengeance,” Solas hisses as he glows in the dusky fog, glaring like some angry father. “That is _not_ how you secure revenge.”

Kimani leans away from him, though he has her by the shoulders now. “Ah. Now you are my teacher, to tell me how and how not to do what I’ve done my entire life.”

Solas shifts his grip, shaking her once before she shoves him away.

“Touch me like that again and I’ll—“

“Kill me? You hardly know what’s going on. Where did we just come from?” Solas waves her off before she can answer. “You are so silly. We have only just started strengthening you, bit by bit, and you choose to succumb to a petty madness that would only whet your thirst.”

It is true; there is still a thrill in her fingertips, in the frenzy of her heartbeat that Kimani cannot deny. “I would never succumb,” she growls.

Solas laughs, standing now with his hands behind his back. “I can see it on you, young one. You rise to the touch of dreams though you may deny it all you want.” He points a finger at her. “You’ve known that particular taste. Am I incorrect?”

Now, Kimani’s own guilt shrinks her form. “You aren’t.”

“And you overcame it once. Perhaps twice? That sort of luck is not something to gamble on a third time.”

“His dream was overtaking me, Solas. As though it were my own.”

“So you meant to shatter it.”

“ _And_ him. He deserved it. And I…”

“Yes, yes, you are angry,” He says harshly, meaning to mock her. “I know. But we could have settled it with a different kind of vengeance. Now you’ve opened yourself to ruin.”

Kimani opens her mouth to retort, closes it again. She is confused. Solas sighs.

“The Nightmare, Inquisitor. We would have gone for the Nightmare directly. That, I think, is the source. But now we have tarried too long. And we are off to Orlais in the morning.” Solas shakes his head. “You must keep your wits about you. The enemy only draws nearer, and who knows what he’s seen if his pet has been following you. _Control_ , Inquisitor.” Solas reaches for her, clapping her solemnly on the shoulder. “You can’t falter. Not now. Do not go for that man again, he is insignificant. He did not win. Yes? Please.”

Kimani feels herself submit before she even says, “alright.”

 Solas softens. “Alright. In the morning. As it is, I apologize for the jolt.”

And then, she is pulled awake like being pulled out of water; sputtering, coughing, flailing her arms and yelping when her hands glance off of solid body.

“Big’un,” she gasps when her vision returns and she sees his face , slapping him on the stomach as he leans over her. “What…?”

“I was coming to talk. But then I heard you crying, and you were still sleep. I couldn’t wake you up, didn’t want to scare you. So I waited.” Bull frowns down at her, laying a hand on her forehead. “Wanna tell me what just happened?”

“I’m no good.” Kimani says, touching her face and feeling tears. Quickly she wipes them away, unwilling to think that her body acknowledges her wrongdoing better than her mind. “I’m no good.”

“Boss.”

“That was what I can do.” She wonders if she was successful, if Gatt, too, is sputtering awake somewhere, in pain or bereft of memory or speech or sight. The thought of success only fleetingly makes her feel sick.

“Not making much sense, Boss.” Bull’s voice grows stern, but he lets her pull him onto the bed. Kimani buries her face in his shoulder. If he only knew how so little of it made sense even to her. The Nightmare’s appearance for certain, and Solas continues to make even less sense than before. She has felt fear at the thought of him for so long that she barely registers it, relegating this strange occurrence into her mental vault of unknowns. Less important now than what he’d said; _the enemy draws near_.

Sometimes, Corypheus seems so far away she forgets to be afraid of him, too.

“Is it morning?” She mumbles after minutes of breathing the same long, overdrawn breaths as Bull. It makes her calm enough; she doesn’t miss how he slows them for her benefit. She kisses one of the scars on his shoulder.

“Almost.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. Not..not now. All that matters is the next mission, because it’s morning.”

“Almost.” Bull pulls her into his lap, lifting her chin to kiss her softly, and she shudders. This. She’d known for months that she wanted him and couldn’t ever quite articulate why, except she imagined this would only feel too right. She slips her arms around his ribs, sighing into his chest.

“So I was thinking. I’d be more useful in Orlais than here,” Bull says, holding her tight as he lay back in the bed. “Not at Halamshiral. Elsewhere. I’d gather other information while you’re playing the Game, for later, since this won’t be the last time we deal with Orlais.”

Kimani snorts for the sake of appearances, but nuzzles him happily. “I feel like you’ve spoken to Josephine already.”

Bull chuckles. “I feel like I have, too,” he agrees before kissing her again. And again.

…

The party for Halamshiral leaves Skyhold with little fanfare beyond the Chargers cheering in rowdy Orlesian when Bull passes them. Kimani wears the pretty black armor, her jawbone necklace on display amidst the sky-blue folds of her old scarf. Bull had fingered at the jawbone’s teeth quietly, and left it be without question, seemingly content with her brief explanation; _From my mother._ Bull rides alongside Leliana, who does not look amused as they speak.

“Ride with me,” Dorian says as he sidles up to her on his pretty Courser. “I haven’t yet been able to pick your mind about whatever you’ve been doing with Solas. Or your new penchant for skeleton jewelry. I have had quite enough of your mystery, you see, and must have all my questions answered.”

Kimani can certainly oblige him, can let him pry as they wind their way out of the mountains, as the caravan loosens from formal lines and begins to mimic the roll of land they travel over. She can let him ask, because no storm clouds come to mar cloudless skies. No thunder claps in her ears, threading cracks across her vision in the absences of true lightning.

_Success._

Again, only a fleeting nausea, but a stronger wave, the guilt of not being so guilty, threatens to tip her over.

She keeps pace with Dorian, eventually raising his eyebrows with, “So it turns out, this armor and I have more in common than being hard to break.”

It is _more_ than enough to keep him talking, even for Vivienne to glance their way every so often until joining in to set everyone straight about Fade theories with draws, of course, Solas. Soon, the mages are debating.

Their voices rise and fall in Kimani’s ears, and she is more than grateful for the distraction.


	18. Kingdoms Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimani and the crew in Halamshiral. In which Kimani almost behaves well.

Once arrived in Halamshiral and the villa they’ve rented for their stay, Kimani walks through each of the rooms, touching the fine tapestries and sweeping low to feel the soft carpets. She walks the garden, crossed the stone path through the middle of its pond. Where the flowers bloom with bright, giant petals, she stops to smell them. She touches everything; Bull half expects for her to take off her boots and walk barefoot for better connection. She’s in awe, and something else.

When he asks, she casts a horribly un-subtle glance at the door before promptly kissing him at the top of his stomach. Which is weird. But she seems to like doing it.

“This place reminds me of my father’s house,” She says, turning back to the gilded walls. “I think his wife was Orlesian. These designs are familiar to me.”

Right. Noble name, not so noble upbringing. “You lived with him?”

“For a year, and some. After my magic manifested I needed to be hidden away someplace protected, and my father loved me. Then I was found, and taken away to the Circle.”

He doesn’t get it. Love her enough to hide her, but not enough to keep her. He doesn’t get it.

“This is such a beautiful place,” She says as she continues her tour, her marked hand casting the now too-familiar glow of the Anchor on the walls. Bull makes to follow, but gets the overwhelming feeling that he’d be more intruder than comfort.

*

He hadn’t tried very hard to learn what Vivienne had planned as far as uniforms, since he didn’t have to wear one of those monstrosities. Bull knew the Boss wouldn’t be wearing a dress, which was so, so smart; he wasn’t sure the Boss could operate in a dress, and tonight was the wrong night to figure it out. He’d barely seen her in mage’s robes, much less a lady’s dress. Relatedly, he wasn’t sure  _he_  could take it, whatever that would look like. Uniform is much safer in all respects. He expects her to look a bit better than the rest of him because, well, she’s the Boss, but he hadn’t considered she’d look  _this_  good when she comes down the stairs.

The Boss hadn’t let Bull in the room when she was changing, and he’s glad. He would have only gotten in the way of art; Ma’am has done well.

She is very much in a uniform, but it hugs the curves of her body unapologetically. The jacket bedecked in silver embroidery, shining in the lapels that frame the arguably modest swell of her cleavage. A necklace of the Inquisition’s symbol rest in said cleavage, shining both beautifully and with clear purpose. They’ve altered the jacket so as not to hide the swell of her hips in soft white-leather breeches that disappear into a very fine pair of boots, cloudy gray to match her gloves. Her sash is the same blood-red as the color on her lips; the color draws the attention to her mouth and the power of her frame. Her mask mimics the shape of her necklace, warping her face into something surreal and setting her eyes alight. And, what Bull thinks is simply a pretty touch: shimmer, like stars on a clear night, in the impeccable curls of her hair.

This, Bull knows, is where most people would thank the Maker.

She is a vision of light as the villa chandelier plays off of her silver. And the way she walks like liquid, slinking into each step. The heels of her boots click sharply as she crosses to the door. Her perfume is something expensive and powdery, lingering in the air. Her weapons are hiding; better smaller blades than some ceremonial sword; everyone would be letting her get close tonight.

Josephine, Vivienne and Leliana grin proudly as everyone--from Solas to Sera—tries not to stare.

 “I’m choosing to be pleased with your ogling,” Kimani laughs, clasping her gray-gloved hands behind her back. “That means the first part of our nefarious plan works.” She doesn’t subdue her Marcher accent because it would leave her clunky, obviously hiding, which is poor form. So that’s good. And the white is honestly a great idea because of the hair; instead of setting her odd features apart, add them to the spectacle. Turn her uniform into a gown of its own.

“You’re going to give the Duke a heart attack, Boss,” Bull says easily, “And we’ll be filtering through your marriage proposals for the next year.”

“Angelic,” Dorian smiles.

“You’re a vision, m’lady,” Blackwall agrees, a bit too vigorously.

“You’re all gonna spoil me. Though I must say white looks very good on you as well, Warden.”  Kimani lays a hand on Blackwall’s arm and the man blushes. Leliana snickers. Bull had sussed that particular bit of information—that The Boss and the Warden had probably (definitely) fucked, at some point—ages ago, but he’d never seen the man _blush_ about it. That’s alright. The poor man’s certainly been nowhere near her recently, the way his hands flex at his belt, the jerky way her nods to her before she turns away, the fight with his own damned gaze to avoid a peek at her hallowed rump. Her perfume is torture enough, even from Bull’s distance, so he can’t really blame Blackwall.

Alright, maybe it bothers Bull a _little_ but he can’t focus on the why, would rather focus on the not-Warden’s struggle. Rather watch the red peek through the thin spot in Blackwall’s beard before it creeps up to his eyes than count the days since becoming Tal-Vashoth (26) or think of all the days he will be Tal-Vashoth (unless he gets his quick, dragon-related death). He knows the Boss is waiting for him to open up about it. He doesn’t really feel too bad at making her wait.

Outside, the sound of the Grand Duke’s carriage is a display in itself, and everyone shifts. Cole, dressed as well in their ceremonial white, disappears.

“Alright,” Kimani sighs, smoothing her lapels and fidgeting with the thin gray belt that keeps her sash in place. “Time to play.” Those who follow her—the advisers, Ma’am, Blackwall, and Dorian—straighten themselves up, and it’s a damn good looking bunch.

 Bull watches her go, watches her step with some purpose towards the opening doors and then to the Duke de Chalons, who beckons to her with a winning smile.

Bull knows that her success is non-negotiable, but the road to getting there?

The Boss is smooth, but not that smooth. Somebody’s going to die tonight.

* * *

 

 

_…and accompanying him: The Lady Inquisitor, Kimani Patris Lia Trevelyan, daughter of Bann Soren Trevelyan, of Ostwick._

Kimani cannot look questioningly at Gaspard as she so wishes because the Game as begun, had started the moment the duke had helped her into his carriage. She keeps her head high and eyes just shy of anyone else’s as she walks the long aisle, her gaze schooled to something that could be called pleasant. But she is reeling with this first hit, this first true taste of a malicious Game. .

She only officially signs herself as _Kimani Trevelyan_ on letters, save those sent to her mother. To her father, she is _your daughter, Kimani_. To her aunts, _Asha’s Kimani_. But her name—Patris, her mother’s mother, an heirloom as much as the necklace she’d left in the villa—no one _knew_ that name. Her records haven’t held her names since she was eight, the surname Lia struck out in equal measure. Someone is playing her. Someone thinks she is simple.

Kimani sweeps a second flourishing bow when she reaches the end of the aisle, rising to briefly meet the Empress’s eyes and smiling prettily beneath her mask.

This is only the beginning; now, they want her to dance.

*

The Orlesians both excite her and make her sick. But Kimani keeps her balance. She dances with Vivienne and Gaspard, and Cole finds her between songs. Leliana pulls her aside to relay information on strange things in corridors and nervous councilmen. She dances with Josephine, and with one of the Council of Heralds. She remembers to breathe, lets her words come easily, takes a walk in the Gardens. Her uniform is spotless; she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror as she passes and she is resplendent. She can stomach the façade.

And then the party picks up a little.

Initially Kimani suspects Briala of foul intentions, but that is too gauche. And the elven woman’s words, spoken proudly in hidden rooms as they stand among corpses, ring insistent in her ears.

And then Gaspard is planning a coup.

And then a man is found in the Empress’s rooms by Cole, no less, which is as strange as it is valuable.

Everything is so dizzying, but it is time to dance again.

The time comes, finally, that she dances with Florianne whose skin prickles like a Fade rift, like someone who has been near them as they open, or close. Florianne who holds her closely and plays the game with a professional flair and a silken tongue, who endeavors, Kimani thinks, to spin her dizzy as they dance.

Florianne, who thinks Kimani is simple.

Kimani bows to the duchess when the song ends and watches her glide away until she realizes that _she_ is being watched.

Dark hair, dark dress, a knowing look about her. Kimani inclines her head to the fellow mage, and the woman smiles. She feels those eyes on her as she walks away. Cole appears by her side easily, though she hadn’t yet begun to call him.

“It gets brighter behind my eyes when I know you want me,” He says softly, mimicking her with his hands behind his back. It’s started an ache in her shoulders, enduring to walk this stately line, but she maintains the position.

“Tell me what hurts about the Duchess de Chalons, Cole.”

Kimani doesn’t know how possible it is for Cole to become a friend but spirits, she cares for the boy. She cannot imagine having thousands of voices in her head and only ever choosing to help.

He gives her a look she doesn’t understand before shaking his head. “She doesn’t feel hurt, only plans it.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes.” Then he is gone, ever-cryptic. Kimani sighs.

Maybe the duchess is dumber than she looks, and will try to strike Kimani first. Save her the time of trying to prove her guilty.

*

Kimani has Florianne by the throat and it is gauche. It is so _gauche_ to walk back into the ballroom dragging the grand duchess beside her like an animal, but she does it because said duchess had the nerve to try and leave her for dead. After she’d spent so much time gathering evidence to end this night properly and with a clean uniform, a non-mage had tried to use a fade rift to get rid of her.

And, she had tried to do so in the name of _Corypheus_.

There is so much blood on Kimani’s jacket. And her nose, and teeth. She tries and fails to roll her right arm, newly re-located. Surely, she walks with a limp.

But she hurls Florianne to the ground before the empress and sinks down on the knee that hurts the least before Celene’s guards fill her with arrows.

The ballroom erupts into confusion, then falls silent. When she dares to look, she see amusement, more amusement than she should, where there should be horror. The empress calmly looks down at her cousin, bruised and bloody, then beyond her to the others in Kimani’s party who come to stand behind their Inquisitor, for a long while before speaking.

“Lady Inquisitor,” Celene calls, no ounce of surprise on her voice. “Do rise. You might explain yourself.”

When Kimani stands again she thinks to have recaptured the grace she’d walked in with, and the crowd aahs as though she is truly some swan and not the faux-noble Marcher mage they’d been eyeing all night.

She hates Orlais. She hates these nobles. This is all still a game to them but this _is_ their board, and she is still a guest.

Kimani lifts her chin, takes a deep breath, and makes her move.

*

Later, so much later, they return to the villa. Blackwall helps Kimani out of the carriage, holding the hem of the rose-colored dress she’d been given because the party was not over once the danger abated, and the triumphant Inquisitor of course had to dance one more waltz. She chooses her Warden, who endeavors to keep her upright as her legs buckle beneath the dress’s skirts; by the time they reach villa it turns out that while she has at least one good knee, she has zero good ankles. Blackwall, ignores her protests and carries her to her rooms. The villa is quiet; Sera is out of sight, Solas is sleeping. Bull’s door is shut. Blackwall frowns beneath his beard when she stops him from waking Solas. She can heal herself well enough until he wakes, sends her Warden off with an indulgent hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Once she’s alone, Kimani sets to work on her ankles. Thinking back on the night makes her dizzy; all she can see, all she can hear, is Corypheus. Florianne, waxing poetic about Corypheus.

The pure dedication to this once-man, this would be god, is what boils her blood. She remembers how he’d been so sure of himself amid the fire swallowing Haven. But to see and hear someone so sure of him—Florianne echoes Erimond, and so the duchess is lucky Kimani isn’t simple. A simple woman would have killed her.

“The enemy draws near,” Kimani echoes Solas as she curls up against an abundance of pillows all scented in lavender.

That was what this was all about. Him. And he had been leading her, if unintentionally. And she had been calling his bluff or forcing it for some time now, what with taking his Anchor, his demon army, his empire. Put that way, Kimani feels like she’s been doing something right, if not always on purpose. Never mind the Fade practically coursing through her veins. Never mind her warped dreaming.

Kimani chews at the inside of her cheek as she thinks of all that has befallen her, and It is truly inconsequential; it is part of the deal she’d been bound to when she was giving life and the mark on her hand. She is the only one and thus, her life is forfeit; the cause is hers until she either succeed, or die.

_I suppose I could **already** be dead, as the alternative. Blown to pieces in a Conclave that was going to end up shit, anyway._

She reaches for comfort in her jawbone necklace, tracing the engravings blindly in the dark: Sun, after sun, after sun. Asha’s letter still hasn’t reached her, but she cannot complain. Nor will she seek her mother out; what she’s done to Gatt is still too fresh on her spirit.

“I have done so many things,” She whispers to herself, sinking into the pillows. “If I woke up and found it was all a dream…ha, what a thought.”

Sleep comes easily. Despite all that weighs heavy on her mind and her soul and her bones, she sleeps easy.

* * *

 

They get the news a day later about Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds, and Iron Bull swears he sees relief on the Boss’s face. Actual relief, as she sips at her Orlesian hot cocoa and eats swirly-bread toast with too much butter and nutmeg. Her hair drips wet and shimmers with the remnants of silver dust from the party, where she fucking choke-slammed the Grand Duchess de Chalons. Bull’s pissed he missed it.

It is morning but as usual, their meeting precedes the sun; Kimani wears a black satin tunic and matching trousers, halfway between pajama and appropriate dress, and bare feet. The jawbone necklace that makes his back itch when he looks at it dangles from her neck as she munches solemnly; her black eye is nearly cleared up and her nose is straightened, the bruise slowly fading. Her lips hold faint scars and her knuckles are only a bit scraped. Nothing really bad enough for him to worry too much.

Yeah. Apparently now, he worries.

“It is revolutionary that an elf have some power in Orlais,” Josephine says in way of compliment, cutting her omelet politely. Bull hadn’t been entirely right; the person he thought would die was still kicking. Empress Celene now rules in tandem with her treasonous cousin and her ex-girlfriend; better than a dead queen, but what about in the long run?

“They’re all horrible people,” Kimani says. The advisers wait for more, and get none. The party hadn’t been any kind of fun for her, and she is done playing her poor render of the Game. So, they move on to what really has them up so early.

 “We’ve been tracking a number of movements since your trip to the Coast, Inquisitor,” Leliana says, sipping daintily at her own cocoa, “We’ve now confirmed that Samson and the Red Templars are in the Arbor Wilds.”

Bull comes through to snag a piece of bread while it’s still warm, and gets hit with Leliana’s icy glare. The spymaster is pissed at him, but they’re working it out. He thinks. She never really did like him to begin with, which was smart. And she knows for certain he’s fucked the Boss at least once. And she knows the Boss. So, yeah, they were working it out.

“Cassandra can have our soldiers ready to move as soon as possible. There are a number of camps between here and the Wilds where we can meet them and our allies,” Cullen says with a jaw-cracking yawn, picking the plainest roll of bread from the fresh basket and taking a listless bite. “Unless we cut out the middle bits and have Leliana’s people set up right in the Wilds.”

Bull nearly laughs. Cullen is so _done_ with Orlais.

“I’m tired of middle bits, to be honest, but I’m not Spymaster. My question: what is Samson doing? Why is he in the Wilds? And Corypheus, where is he?” The Boss flicks her eyes to the new person in the room as she clears her throat. Another mage, Morrigan, that they’d brought back from the party. Witch of the Wilds. Bull stands far away from her, resolved to keep his distance when the Boss does smile at the witch. She looks easy enough to break, but he hasn’t seen her magic yet. “Lady Morrigan.”

“No need for titles,” the witch drawls, “As for the answers to your questions; I might show you something, Inquisitor, which would help put Corypheus’ new plans into better light. Have you heard of an Eluvian?”

The Boss has not. The witch explains even more freaky shit, which also explains the gigantic mirror in one of the previously-empty spare rooms of the villa. Of course, the Boss looks both interested and flustered.

“The poor sod doesn’t understand,” she says softly, “How can he want this horrible thing so much? He’s been in the Fade. He should _know_ better. There is nothing there that he can have. There’s no kingdom for him.”

This is odd. Bull’s never heard the Boss talk about the Fade—even the Raw Fade—like this.

“Tis true,” Morrigan nods knowingly, “that it is a fool’s errand.”

“And yet here we are.” Kimani stands from the table. “Do I need shoes for this Eluvian?”

Now the witch smiles in confusion, looking to the others in the room and being met with unmoved, waiting gazes. Basically: The Boss is a little weird, but everyone’s over it. “Not…No, Inquisitor?”

“Then show me.”

“Inquisitor, you can’t-“Cullen begins futilely, quieting when Kimani frowns at him.

“I can. And I will. Because we are going to go _fight magic_ , Commander, and I need to understand the importance of this Eluvian. Anyway, I think that if Morrigan for whatever reason wants to subdue me, she’ll have a horribly difficult time. I don’t know anything about Eluvians, but she doesn’t know about me. Maybe it evens out. Maybe I get stuck in a mirror. But I doubt it.”

Bull likes when she talks like this. Her voice goes steely though by now, she doesn’t waste her anger on Cullen (who she’s secretly come to like, though Bull will never suggest). She becomes cool, confident, certain in her own determination; she blinks slower, flexing her hands as though she’s itching to cast. First she grounds Cullen with her gaze then Morrigan, and there’s no threat in it. Just clarity in that she means what she says without saying it: _Fuck with me if you want to._

Bull realizes that this might have been it for him, the thing that’s kept her in his head; since the very beginning, she has never begged for anyone to believe her. She simply tells. And from the very beginning, he’s believed most everything she’s told him. Even when it’s a horrible idea. Like now. 

Now the witch smiles. “Oh, I _like_ you.”


	19. Seven Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Well of Sorrows call her Good Enough. Bull calls her other things. She doesn't yet get to call Corypheus a dead man, but damn it if she isn't on her way.
> 
> Also, fuck Morrigan.

**First**

 Kimani might be in love with the Arbor Wilds if not for the subtle magic that does not want them there. She feels, from the moment they step into what belongs to the Wilds, that they are futilely being urged to leave. The Wilds push at them, though the repulsion is lost on many as the combined forces of the Inquisition and its allies arrive at the first of the forward camps. Some of the greatest armies in Thedas have come together in the lush, green belly of the Wilds; Kimani can spot the mages outside of her ranks from the way they look about them with not only an apprehension, but a fear. They’re not used to it.

Perhaps if she hadn’t killed so many red Templars and other horrors in the lush green, if she hadn’t played part in drowning out the droning, insistent buzz of the jungle with the dying cries of enemies, then Kimani could love the Arbor Wilds. Perhaps if she hadn’t trespassed and destroyed a sacred temple, if she had never stepped foot onto Mythal’s hallowed ground, she might consider returning to the Wilds under kinder circumstances. Perhaps, if she could be rid of the dead sentinels in the temple they’d protected for millennia, burned into her psyche.

 

**Second**

 

The Well of Sorrows whispers so kindly and it is welcome after the onslaught that was General Samson (and he is indeed mighty but she is _always_ angrier, spitting veilfire through her teeth and he can only move so fast; besides, she's flanked by Truth and a mortal god of Death). Kimani looks into the clear water and does not see her reflection, only the chilling emptiness of ice, rippling in the wind. The Well simply babbles to her ears, but Kimani feels a familiar compulsion to suppose. She sees herself waist-deep in the pool. She sees it grab hold of her like the Fade had at Adamant, and does not recoil; it is amenable, considering the stakes. At least this celestial body offers something concrete in return. The Sentinel had been cryptic on the aftershock of such a binding; his last duty to the Well, she supposes. A final "fuck you" to the outside world, finally come to corrupt.

If only she had room to feel sorrier; there's not enough of her, and she is unwilling to make space in what's left.

Solas refuses to drink. Morrigan shows her claws too soon in the way she rumbles her curious hunger with a nearly literal gnashing of teeth. There are no more suitable volunteers; Cassandra pales ghost-white with the realization in synchronicity with Dorian, who sighs hard through his nose.

" _Vishante kaffas_ ," he mutters. "Fuck it _all_ into the blighted Void."

When Kimani descends into the basin, she is given a begrudgingly wide berth. The water tastes as sweet as its many voices, and is surprising tepid before pulling her under.

Underwater: _I must kill a magister bent on sitting throne in the Black City. He cannot have it; it is not his. Will you help me?_

 _Do you understand the price?_ the voices ask, newly stern. _Are you willing to pay?_

_Yes. **Yes**. Help me._

 

**Third**

When she comes out on the other side, Corypheus stands on the large balcony overlooking the chamber, rejuvenated and very much alive. Kimani swallows down bile for the second time today. Wild thoughts crowd her mind; electricity, her least favorite of abilities, crackles at her fingertips as she nearly rises off of the ground with the rush of her rage. _I see you._

But stepping forward knocks her back as a spirit rises from the empty basin where the Well used to be (now, it’s curled into her veins, her skin, the corners of her mind) and meets the gliding magister in the air so that he, too, is knocked away from his target. Kimani swears the spirit winks at her when it rounds back her way, swooping overhead to shatter the Eluvian before disappearing into the chaos. Kimani stands in the midst of falling glass, inexplicably relaxed.

But in reality, it’s not so complex; Kimani and the spirit are kindred in rage, and the release of such anger touches her where she most needsit. It is as if _she_ shatters, and would that it could be so.

 

**Fourth**

 Morrigan no longer likes her. The witch is a fair travel companion, just mysterious and lilting enough to keep Kimani interested despite the funny way she speaks. Arcane sleuth, she who needs all knowledge. She would do well in the Inquisition but now, with nothing to weigh her down with its secrets, Kimani suspects she will flit away in the form of some black, death-summoning bird. Kimani has taken something that the better mage had imagined was owed her; the sentiment sets Kimani’s teeth on edge in the heat of the moment. Not because Morrigan’s entitlement sickens her, but because she thinks Morrigan has missed a crucial point; If anyone _deserves_ the power to fell Corypheus, it is her.

_Spirits, I have to stop._

They leave the temple’s ruins to a lonely, slow death.

 

**Fifth**

 

“Shit. _Fuck_. Spirits, no.”

The Wilds still shake and echo with some skirmishes yet in their final throes as red Templars and other demons realize their Master has fled. Kimani had not seen Bull go down. Hadn’t heard him cry out.

It only matters in her heart; had she known, she'd have left him to follow Samson. Because that is her job.

Perhaps it's better she only knows now.

“Boss…” His eye is glassy and unfocused, but she can see a smile crack the layer of blood and grime on his face. “Hey it…looks… worse…”

“No, it is exactly as bad as it looks,” Dorian says darkly, eyes intent on the gore. “But it’s looking better. Talk to him, precious. If he falls asleep, it will be even worse than it looks.”

Dorian and the young medic Nona are on him like flies on a corpse, which is somehow a comforting image. Kimani stands frozen in place, watching the various colors of the mages’ magic pulse over the wound until Bull cries out, and she falls to the ground beside him to weave her fingers with his. _Shit._

"You stay alive," Kimani whispers, shaking as she kisses the inflamed base of one horn. “Don’t go anywhere, Big’un. Just…” She unclasps her jawbone necklace and pulls it from the folds of her armor, laying it gingerly on his newly-scarred chest. She doesn’t know why, doesn’t know if it means anything.  “I leave you alone for a moment, and you go and get yourself wrecked.”

“Tell me.” He looks at her, and her own breathing labors because his expression is bare. She can see his fear and pain and the urge to _sleep_ and she sits back on her heels, never relinquishing the grip on his hand. “Temple. Tell…"

“It was beautiful. You’d have even liked it. Old and overgrown and so much green. And dangerous.”

“Favorite,” Bull whispers, some prodding at his wounds making him wheeze himself breathless.

Kimani goes on. “You ask Sera and she might just curse me for an hour, but I did rituals. It had to be done, we were trespassing on sacred ground and shedding blood and I had no time, but I did them.”

“Risky…”

“I know, Big’un.” She cups his jaw, feels the heat creeping up his neck clash against the cool skin on his face. When she looks to the mages, only Nona catches her eye, paling as she works. “And so I honored the temple because its keepers were watching. And they helped us. Don’t know what might’ve happened without them there. You’d have been so excited. I kicked his ass. He…he kicked mine too, but I _won_. Remember what I showed you? When we came back from the Coasts?”

Bull grunts. “ _Ataashi_.” _That_ was the word he’d said before kissing her. “Eluvian. What happened with it?” His words start coming a little easier and when Kimani looks to Dorian, there is less grief in his eyes.

“Broke it.” She leaves it at that, kissing his bloodied mouth and quietly rejoicing that he has the energy to try and bite her lip to keep her from pulling away. _Stay with me, please, you big idiot._ He manages a hold on her thigh, though it tightens with waves of his pain rather than any acute desire, and she laughs, resting her forehead against his. They’re supposed to keep talking, but Bull’s squeezing her leg every few seconds and she knows he’s awake; Kimani tries to keep the wave of her emotions at bay. _Please._

The Well has so far been unwilling to overrun her with voices, content with an insistent murmur at the back of her head. They sing her some elven song she doesn’t know, but they sing it clear as day: _Melava inan enansal, ir su araval tu elvaral u na emma abelas…_

Abelas. Sorrow. The protector, and the Well he’d relinquished with begrudging…not a blessing, but the acknowledgment that Kimani was at least good enough.

“We’ve pulled him away from certain death, at least,” Dorian murmurs after a time, he and Nona pulling back from Bull’s side. His blood’s curdled red in the grass and on their hands, soaked into their robes. “He needs to lay still so everything can harden, so to speak. And you…need to change.” Dorian is dirty and smelling sharply of his own magic, but he wrinkles his nose at her. “You’ve won the battle, and he will win his. But you must change.”

Kimani thumbs at dirt on Bull’s face with an equally dirty finger, and sighs.

“Stay awake,” She whispers fiercely to Bull, kissing his cheek before nodding to Nona, who’s regained some modicum of color. “He lives, yes, Nona?”

“He lives,” Nona echoes. Her staff lay at her side, still as horrible as it had been at Adamant. Her hands, however, are sure.

Dorian waits a few paces away, and when he wraps his arm tightly around her shoulders she lifts her gaze to the ever-green canopy and gasps, covering her mouth with shaking fingers before anyone can hear the soft way she cries. Hot streams of tears pool in her ears; underwater, she can only hear the Well.

 

**Sixth**

 

Bull swears his eye stays open, but his vision is swimming and this reminds him of Seheron. Well, he _knows_ he’s not in Seheron, that’s…that’s not where he is, he knows this, but the Wilds teeter dangerously close to a mirror image of one of his favorite places on that island. It’s why he’d grabbed the Boss her first night in the Wilds and had his way until they both damn-near forgot where they were. But the relief was fleeting. Things this far south don’t fight the same as on the island, and still he’d been neck-deep in a waking dream as they fought in this jungle until whatever hit him, hit him hard.

For a moment, he _had_ been dying; he’s been as close before.

_Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Shok ebasit hissra. Maraas shokra. Maraas shokra._

“ _Maraas_ …”

Bull knows now he’s not going to die. He hears Dorian and a medic and the tight tones of the Boss as she first stood, then knelt over him. So, he’s not going to die. But the qunlat is comforting though he cannot complete the chant; he can barely recite it in order. Bad qunari. Too easy a Tal-Vashoth.

The canopy above him undulates with the aftershocks of explosion, dancing in his unreliable vision: memories of his favorite place in Seheron. The fighting had always been so clean there; neither the Vints nor the fucking Fog Warriors seemed to want to tarnish that stretch of jungle with bad blood.

But he’s not in Seheron. And he’s not dying.

“ _Maraas…”_   Struggle, Struggle, struggle. There is nothing to struggle against, and there is everything. _Shok ebasit hissra_.

The Boss returns to him (how long has it been?), smelling like the forest water and  clean skin and magic. “ _Maraas_. What is _maraas_?” Her voice is hoarse, but even and loose as she speaks first to him and then to the medic still poking at his injuries. This medic is a good one; he’s tried to follow along with her hands, with the sounds of medicine bags opening and closing. She’s quick, but careful, amd seems to put Kimani at ease. Which puts him at ease.

“ _Kadan,"_ he says. Hmm. Accidental. Conveniently, he hasn’t the energy to renege.

“I will have to learn to speak back, once you are healed,” Kimani murmurs, unknowingly hitting every nerve not set on fire by his wound. Bull fixes his eye on her and sees she’s indeed been wiped cleaner, her hair tied away in black to match her tunic. She looks good in black, solid and unpredictable. The lines under her eyes are deep, the eyes themselves a golden hue aflame in a sea of red. She flinches when he groans as his arm is lifted, the aches of battle magnified now that he lay so still for so long.  She takes that arm and lay it on her thigh, stroking his skin.

“At least you are awake,” she says firmly. “Good. Nona, how’s the wound?”

“Ghastly," the medic says drily, "But our magics held. The poultice will prevent infection once our work has hardened a bit more and I can apply it, though he’s burning off something right now.”

Kimani nods, rubbing his arm. Bull tries to zone in on that sensation and instead feels himself spiral away from it, hazy. “I can feel it. I want you to watch him, Nona. I can’t stay. A tent will be pitched around you, food brought. But I want you here, yes? I can’t stay.”

He’s able to manage some kind of noise when she returns his arm to him, pushing herself to her feet. Not a whimper if no one is around to call it, right?

“Yes, Inquisitor.”

“Keep the necklace on his chest.”

“It won’t move.”

“Alright. Alright.” She’s stalling. _Taashath, kadan._

“I’m ok,” he says, but the sun’s blocked out her face and he can’t see if she believes him. Probably not. When Sera comes…no. Maybe Cassandra. If Cassandra comes, he can relay the message a second time.

Then the medic, who the Boss must know from before, becomes bold. “Put your trust in me, Worship. I will not let him weaken. I know what I’m doing. I’ve done more battle than you, remember?”

Bull likes Nona. Even if he had still been dying, he believes she would keep the Void reaching for him at bay.

“Yes,” Kimani finally says, resigned. “Alright.” Her boots crunch on the ground and when Bull hears her voice next, it is further away and singing. In Elvhen.

Then Bull’s vision is full of Nona. He can finally see that she’s kind of a kid, but with scarily old eyes and the scowl of someone who’s seen a lot of ghosts be made in pools of blood on battlefields.

“You are very lucky to be loved by such a woman, you know,” She says, patting his head. Bull watches her scowl soften into something else, and he fails to return the friendly gesture. “No, don’t respond to that. I probably shouldn’t have said it. Stop twitching, ser Iron Bull. Stay awake.” 

…

By nightfall Kimani is in the tent pitched around Bull, humming songs she shouldn’t know (this makes Solas grim). The Well hums too, still uninterested in driving her mad. She thinks it has indeed named her Good Enough, which she can live with. But she has no choice, even if she couldn’t. 

When she finds rest, it is uncharacteristically sprawled on her belly and snoring, her unmarked hand resting in the crook of Bull’s arm.

Bull finds he’s not big on sleep when he’s finally allowed, spends his night tracing over the teeth in Kimani’s necklace and watching the bone rise and fall with his breathing, the designs across it a cluster of pale suns in the dark. Bull remembers that she has a faded tattoo on her back in the same style, stroke for stroke, and decides to busy himself with tracing the design with a finger to his chest. Practicing at light.

 

**Seventh**

 

In the morning, the Well whispers more fervently, and it is the strangest little burble of a stream in the back of her head; there are things she can understand if she sifts through the Elvhen. She wants to be left alone with her thoughts but that is impossible; Solas comes to her when Cassandra leaves to find Cullen and she sighs heavily, bowing her head.

“Then you know what I’ve come to say,” Solas says softly, giving some space between them when he sits. Kimani curls into herself, nodding.

“You may still say it, if you like.”

“Inquisitor, you don’t understand what you’ve done, giving away a piece of yourself.”

Kimani reaches for the comfort of her necklace before she remembers where it is. “I am already in so many pieces, Solas.”

“And how many of these pieces are in the clutches of an ancient, Elvhen god?”

“I’m at one, since yesterday,” she says flatly, shutting her eyes briefly against his frustrated sigh.

“You don’t understand.”

“And yet you and Morrigan—the two who _do_ seem to understand—choose instead to throw fits because you cannot have what you want. Though with you I don't know _what_ you want, because it certainly wasn't the Well of fucking Sorrows.”

Solas is silent. He refuses to speak on the Well beyond chastising her. Useless.

 “You were the only other viable candidate, Solas. The only person with the knowledge, and enough of my trust. And you made your choice. I am not upset with it because I figure, what’s a bit more arcane running through my veins? What’s a few more voices? What’s the will of some lost goddess when the Fade has already cast judgement on me? Not much, I figure, if it kills Corypheus.”

At this a few heads turn around the wide circle given to the fire, but everyone is very much too into their porridge to do anything but listen intently. Kimani does not care if they hear.

“Inquisitor-“

“My life’s been forfeit since the Conclave, Solas,” Kimani says wearily, realizing she grips her bowl clammy hands. “Why no one seems to recognize this is beyond me. My coming out of this alive or sane is a wild dream; one that I cling to, but no less wild. The Veil is thin in the palm of my hand. You know this. Now will you help me, or will you lambast the choice that you— _neither_ of you—cannot change?”

Morrigan has been listening, and Kimani can’t tell if she’d been attempting any subtlety. Now, the witch turns to her with an ill-concealed scowl. Oh, Bull would have a field day with her.

Suddenly, the Well’s burble sputters into chattering life and Kimani is set afloat in sound as she listens, parsing through Elvhen for the begrudging common tongue that tries and fails to rush past her like a quick river.

_He has put himself into the dragon. A piece of his life._

_Corypheus’ dragon that is not a dragon?_ She likes the Well, if only because she can ask and it readily answers.

_But it **is.** It is true to its form, corrupted by the blight of red lyrium. You must kill the dragon, Good Enough, so that he cannot take life from blighted bodies quicker than you can kill him. But first you must call upon her to whom you’ve been bound._

The author she must reach is not far from the Temple she’s desecrated. The goddess could have been watching everything from this Altar folded away into the jungle. Kimani nods to herself and keeps nodding. _Alright. Alright. Okay._

“The Well speaks to you,” Morrigan says, a jealous glint in her eyes.

“Yes, I would hope so,” Kimani says evenly, turning away from her glare. “Cassandra? Find Cullen. I need the pair of you, as well as Vivienne and Dorian,” she calls to the Seeker, sopping the last of her porridge with a heel of bread. She’d at least be fed before beseeching a God.

 _Stay away_ , she implores Cole, whom she has not seen since going into Mythal’s temple. He is here, somewhere.

Kimani stands, casting Solas a cutting glance before walking away from the fire. “Solas. You may continue to sit there, or you may come and help.”

His footfall has always been light but Kimani hears it, painstakingly controlled to a casual stroll, behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It came up so I figured I'd just throw out that I be on tumblr: http://belowbedlam.tumblr.com , where I cross post and generally engage in fandom foolery. You can throw memes at me on tumblr, just saying. >_


	20. Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking dragons and talking lovers and talking milennia-old villains.

The first time Kimani ever encountered a living, breathing dragon, it was her first week in the Hinterlands. She was still fairly terrified of Cassandra, and she spent a lot of time scratching at the intact skin around the Anchor, scared shitless.

It was a good time, the Hinterlands. Good memories, considering.

But the dragon. That first time, they’d gotten lost. A Circle mage and a Nevarran leading a slick-mouthed dwarf from Kirkwall and an elven  _somniari_ who knew exactly where everything was, but only in his sleep. No one trusted each other for longer than they could blink and so everyone swallowed their nerves and followed the youngest of their party through the hills because to show fear? Unacceptable.

Well. Maybe not for Varric.

Cassandra stopped them before they ventured too near the dragon’s nest, and they thought themselves safe. But one of the dragonlings was too curious. Its legs carried it too far. And when they killed it—When Kimani, who only knew of dragons from sloughing through the Histories and hearing salacious stories,  _killed_  it– the mother blotted out the sun and turned a valley into a lake of fire in retaliation.

No, they didn’t kill the mother. They ran like shit, and  _hid_. Kimani swears off dragons for the rest of her life.

Now, she looks upon a kindred spirit. Her skin still crawls from Mythal’s (Flemeth? Morrigan’s angry mother?) power over her, the compulsion she now feels at the goddess’s behest.

Kimani takes back everything she’s ever assumed about puppets and strings. This is  _nothing like that._

She had  _wanted_ to restrain Morrigan from hurting Mythal, and she can trace that wanting like a red trail in the dust. She had watched it unfold, and wanted to follow it.

And she knows that this dragon, this protector of Mythal, is the same way. It tells her as much once the battle is over, and they stand before each other as fellow pawns.

“Did that have to be so hard?” Kimani pants, sinking into her haunches. “I guess it’s good to know Mythal is a difficult mistress. I wouldn’t want to be too surprised.”

But that stings. It’s too early to make jokes about her very real servitude to a goddess in the flesh.

Mythal’s dragon speaks to her in a guttural, choppy voice that rubs rough against the confines of her mind.  _I will come to your aid  only once. You may summon me one time._ Its eyes are huge—she has never been so close, never wanted to be so close to a dragon—and she is reflected in their amber light as they blink slowly. Its breath is a hot sweep over her body as it pants, grumbling on the exhale, and Kimani wonders if it is as old as its mistress.

“One time. That seems fair,” Kimani nods, “And enough to do what I need to do. How shall I call you? By name?”

She decides that this dragon— _only_  this dragon, _this_  particular creature—is an agreeable living thing when it replies:  _I have no real preference, though you might sing a song._

Kimani snorts, wiping at her sooty face. “A song. Any song? Need you understand the language?”

The dragon is at a disadvantage in its lack of expression, but she can imagine it frowning at what it must think is a silly, young human.

 _Sing the song,_ it says, _and I will know it when you sing it again._

“Kimani, what is this?” Cassandra asks, her confusion giving way to an angry, tired fear. Only moments ago they had been fighting for their lives against one of the greater beasts of the air, and now she speaks to it as though it speaks back; they are all of them confused. And they are exhausted,  _so_ exhausted, the four of them little more than four sets of teeth on edge, four pairs of weapon-wielding, aching hands.

Kimani can’t answer Cassandra. She’s thinking.

“Alright,” she says seriously, looking the dragon in the eyes. She can feel a connection forge between them, can feel the dragon reaching out to grab her magic and weave them together so they are bound, at least until it is summoned. Though ephemeral, the bond is strong. “I’ve something for you.”

Dragons don’t smile. They are not said to look pleased. But Kimani is thoroughly convinced at this particular creature’s approval. So she straightens herself up, takes a deep breath, and sings the only Rivaini song she knows.

…

“ _Ataashi_.”

“Dragon.”

“Ooh,” Kimani nods, wide-eyed. “I like that. Because of the…?” She opens her mouth and exhales hard, though nothing but breath comes out. Bull laughs, nodding his head.

“Yeah. Pretty cool trick you got there.”

“It is an  _ability,_  honed over weeks of hard work,” Kimani feigns superiority, lifting her chin. Bull runs a hand up her leg, tugging at her night gown, and grins.

“My apologies. So, will you tell me about it now?” Bull had picked up Mythal’s dragon’s scent the moment she returned to him, and when he couldn’t glean a story from her appearance, he began asking. But talking dragons and eternal servitude are not things she wants to share yet, if at all. Bad enough Cassandra and the others witnessed.

Bull groans in pain when he stretches; Kimani ghosts her fingers over the fresh bandage, clicking her tongue. The reality of his near-death blow is emphasized in the deep, ugly scar left behind, curved like a smile and now glinting like silver in the light through her balcony glass. Bull occasionally re-wraps the scar because it still hurts on the inside and the scabs are sensitive, but it hasn’t stopped him from coming to her as often as she’ll have him.

She lets herself be pulled against him as he lay back on her bed, but buries her face in his neck when he slips a hand beneath her gown, whining as she shakes her head. “Mm mm.”

Bull immediately shifts, wrapping an arm around her instead. “Sore?”

“I just want to hear the rest of the words. And…maybe I’m sore,” She admits, squirming. “I liked it.”

“Oh, I know,” Bull nods, tightening his grip on her when she swats his chest. “I thoroughly enjoyed watching you like it.”

“Ah, but your eyes were not always open.”

“Because you feel like satin, and eyes closed is the best way to indulge. Warm,  _wet,_  tight. Mhhm.”

“The  _words_ , Big’un,” Kimani laughs, reddening. “Back to the words.  _Maraas_.”

“Eh, well.  _Maraas shokra_  means ‘there is nothing to struggle against.’ I was chanting, sort of. Reciting a rite.”

“For…oh.” Kimani looks up at him, pressing closer. He had almost died in the Wilds. She’d seen it in his face, seen death hover like an invited guest in the angles of his features. “Other people are supposed to say rites for you.”

“Kimani-“

“But you have no one that knows the words here.”

“That has nothing to do with you. If I died out here, I’d be saying my own rites regardless.”

“I know. I am…” No, she can’t say that, that she’s sorry he is Tal-Vashoth, because it isn’t true. “I’m sorry it hurts you.”

“I’m fine,” Bull insists. “I have my boys. I have this place, these people. A purpose. I’ve had you, though you’re always fucking pushing.”

“You  _have_  me.” Kimani kisses his neck. “I can push less. I think.”

“No, never push less. Horns up, and all that.”

“Horns up. Skinner yelled that to me in the Wilds.” Kimani points her index and pinky fingers to the sky, curling the rest against her palm, and presses the back of her hand to her forehead. Bull opens his eyes for this, and chuckles.

“Skinner, huh? I ask her, and she’ll deny it forever. But she thinks you’re fine.”

“ _For a shem_ ,” they say together, laughing. Kimani slides her foot up his leg as she curls against him, and relishes in the little rumble that vibrates in his chest.

“What’s it really mean? Just a battle cry? But you all say it to each other off of the field sometimes.”

“Tell me what you think it means,” Bull says softly, rumbling again when she rubs his stomach. “ _Don’t_  stop doing that.”

“Bravery, no doubt,” Kimani muses. If Bull must digress, better that he do it with this silliness and this talk, the slow draw of his breath and his hand resting lightly on her rump, “but also it means the time has come to do whatever it’s time to do. And do it all the way, even if…regardless of how the end comes out. You signed up to do it, so you need to do all of it.  _The Bull’s Chargers always deliver_.”

Bull laughs, shaking them both. “That’s pretty perfect.”

“And I’m talking instead of you,” Kimani pokes his belly. His left side is still tender and flushed an odd purple; his left side is unlucky. He’s scarred from eye to ankle, with almost no reprieve. Bull had let her trace the purple scars on his left leg, had wiped the few errant tears she’d shed for him, and then spent the rest of the night kissing her own scars with his fingers inside of her. “Deflecting. Secret Ben-Hassrath techniques.”

“I’ve been deflecting for over year, now, you persistent harpy.”

“ _Never push less_ ,” Kimani drops her voice to mimic him, biting at his collarbone. “But it’s alright. I only want you to know that I will help. If you ever need help, I…we can sit here and go through as much qunlat as you can manage to translate until I understand enough to help. Just remember you’re talking to a Circle mage and apostate. The first time I lost my world, I had little choice. The second time there was choice but it was the worst kind.”

“And now you’re mighty enough to try to save the world for everyone,” Bull murmurs, stroking her hair. “I will be fine. Having you here with me, knowing that despite the world on your shoulders and its fate literally in the palm of your hands you want to know all my damn secrets is help enough. You help me already. Because I’ve had you. Even before this, I think.”

“You  _have_  me,” she insists. “I. It’s…” The words are stuck in her throat. They have been there for what seems like ages, bloomed in the shadow of the Frostbacks before they ever set foot in Skyhold. Now they’ve stuck.

Bull is silent for a long while. Kimani moves to pull away and he tightens his hold, so she lay with her cheek pressed against his chest. She wishes they had more time. There is no more time. She wishes they had more time.

But she loves him. There’s no playing like it doesn’t exist. She has loved him. And he is alone, reciting rites she’s certain no longer apply to him.

“Kimani, you said you waited for me,” Bull says, finally. “That you only wanted one thing. You waited. I…unless it was for the sex. Which is pretty impressive, if so.”

“No, _fuck_.” Kimani says, swatting him. “As much as I like it, that’s not what I meant.”

Bull nods. “That’s what I thought. So it’s alright. Words get stuck,  _kadan_ , but you…” He trails off, and Kimani can feel his skin goosebumps as he scoffs. “Well. Clearly not.”

 _Kadan_. He’s said it before but she thought it was a curse, or some plea. And now he says it, and stumbles.

“Tell me what _kadan_ is,” she says, avoiding eye contact. Bull takes her hand—gone from rubbing his stomach to stroking at raised scars—and slides it up over his chest. When he applies pressure, she can feel the steady, strong beating of his heart.

When she gathers her nerve and looks up at him, he’s turned his head until the horns stop him. So he may see her better.

“ _Kadan_ ,” he says, holding her hand there. Kimani feels herself grow warm, too close to a fire burning too hot. “ _Kadan_. Do you understand?”

“Shh,” Kimani hushes, squeezing her eyes shut. She presses her ear to his chest, same as her hand, so that she may listen. The beating is loud in her head; The Well and the Fade are blessedly silent. She sighs and it is shaky, coalescing into a little squeak of her voice.

“Hey,” Bull coos, dragging a large thumb across her cheek. Kimani catches it, weaving their fingers together as she hides her face once more in the crook of his neck.

“I understand,” comes her muffled reply. She doesn’t realize he’s tense until the whole of him relaxes, sinking further into the bed. He’s squeezing her hand in his, and it is perfect. “I get it.”

…

“I was not aware that I stand in the presence of a  _somniari_ ,” Morrigan says by way of greeting when they finally cross paths in Skyhold’s garden. “Resilience and subtlety don’t usually manifest in Dreamers at the same time.”

Kimani’s crouched in in her little corner patch of dirt, cursing at her sickly crop of herbs. Everything’s withered, and she is out of _nesomni_. She cannot be too upset; that she manages to grow these herbs so high in the Frostbacks is a miracle, and sometimes miracles run out.

She makes Morrigan wait as she scratches at the cold dirt before responding. “That would explain the thin population of those like me.”

“Of a certainty.” Morrigan watches her, folding her arms. “You seem fairly calm at the advent of your eternal servitude, and you are no player of the Game.”

“Yes.”

The witch’s eyes narrow. “So you are  _truly_  accepting of this fate? Even now that you’ve seen whom you serve?”

“I suppose it might be less bearable if whom I served turned out to be my body-snatching mother,” Kimani says, looking blandly up at Morrigan, who only nods in agreement.

“Tis true that I’m now glad that  _you_  drank of the Well.”

“I bet you are,” Kimani says with a smile, rising to her feet. “Not quite willing to accept the knowledge any cost, eh?”

“I was still the better candidate,” Morrigan retorts evenly, her face a porcelain mask.

Kimani shrugs. “You’re not the only one who can  _study_ , Morrigan. Honestly.” She turns away , shaking her head. “You may stay in Skyhold and assist, if it is so important to you. But you will not. I won’t presume to know your mind, but I know you will not. You are welcome here as long as you like, Lady Morrigan, know that….” Kimani trails off as the world begins spinning in her vision and her skin goes thick and crawling and her tongue grows heavy.  _Oh, shit. Oh shit, shit, **shit.**_ ****

 _He is near, Good Enough._ The Well all but shouts in her ears.

The warning comes just moments before the Anchor snaps to life, slicing a green sheet of light into the cloudy afternoon.  _Fuck._

Morrigan is calling her over the sound Kimani belatedly realizes is her own screaming. She feels the familiar sensation of dreams envelop her, but it is wrong. This is  _wrong_. That is—

Yet she is indeed pulled as she was pulled by Gatt’s meddling and Morrigan is gone and she is face-to-face with Corypheus, his eyes flitting about unfocused until she comes into his vision. Kimani yelps as the tip of his nose brushes hers; they are too close. He holds her high in the air by the wrist of her marked and, and the Anchor shines like a beacon above them.

Spirits, she remembers this. This fear.

Behind him are ruins: The Temple of Sacred Ashes lay before her, as both she can tell and as the Well whispers: she can still make out the first two pillars of the Western entrance, cracked and crumbled.

“Ah, Pretender.” Corypheus says, his voice soft. Kimani is floundering, her mind scattered and on fire; the dream (day dream? She doesn’t  _know_ ) sharpens and blurs like a weak, determined pulse. “It was divine providence that I might find use of your slippery  _somniari_  scent and now, behold. The Inquisitor, hanging like a sacrificial offering to a new god.”

That  _voice_. Kimani grinds her teeth when he laughs, lowering arm that holds her so that he may look down at her.

“You finally-“ she begins, but is drowned out by the magister’s vicious growl.

“Silence, pretender. I am here to invite you personally to the ascent of a god. If you would cast your eyes to the sky,” the suggestion is more joke than anything; Corypheus turns them both so that Kimani sees the scar in the clouds, purple and rose and holding as sure as it has held for over a year. The scar in the sky, like the scars on her body: proof of triumph over unreal adversity. Triumph where there should not have been.

That scar bursts open, Fade pouring from the re-opened wound to lap at the sky like a thousand demonic tongues. The Anchor catches, bathing both her and Corypheus in light down to their shoulders, pulsing so the Fade’s gripping sensation spreads over her body from that point of origin, and Kimani wheezes with the pain of over-stimulation. “You’ll kill all of us this way,” She gasps, struggling futilely in his iron grip. “Not even you will survive.”

“Is that what the Well tells you?” There is bitterness in the gravel of his voice. “We are done playing, Pretender. We have reached the end of this game. The sky will fall. This world will fall. You remember this place where you happened upon destiny, and now I invite you to return and face the only true contender for godhood.”

It is ridiculous, the sharp spike of fear threatening to slice her open, the hell-hot rush of hatred for this face and this voice and this hand that holds her helpless, this intrusion yet again into her person. Kimani is wide-eyed, breathing heavily against the pain in her over-stretched shoulder, her feet dangling in the air. Her mind begins to focus in, and amidst a whispering Well and the pain of the Fade’s grip, she manages to hold on to two very simple thoughts.

The first is indeed the fear:  _The time has come to fight against this thing. Maybe die._

The second is born from the resignation Kimani is certain has kept her alive thus far:  _Finally._

“You are correct,” she sighs, looking at the once-man before reaching out with her free hand, only just scraping the skin on his gnarled neck with her longest finger. She wants to squeeze so hard his head rolls away, but she cannot reach.

The gesture freezes Corypheus, his brow furrowing.

“I don’t want to be a god,” Kimani murmurs, taking in how his hide curls in on itself, warped and pallid and more callous than skin, corrupted by a millennia of reaching too far into the forbidden places of this world and the next. And yet all that stops him is lack of a proper door. Kimani scoffs.

Fuck him and his delusions. Either way she sees it, he dies today. As he says, this is the end of the game.

“Corypheus, I’m coming. Wait for me, alright?” She says, winking, and casts the largest bolt of lightning she can manage directly at his throat.

He can hardly scream before Kimani is snatched from his grasp and hurled back into the waking world. It leaves her numb, but very much back in the gardens. Morrigan stands over, as does her council, Cassandra, Sera, the mages, Varric. She can feel Cole, though he chooses to stay hidden. They are worried, grim, and knowing with the old green pallor stretched across the sky once more. Corypheus had shown her the truth.

 _Shit. I must close the breach or it eats everything, yes?_   She calls to the Well.

_Yes, Good Enough. You must._

A dozen hands reach to help steady her as she stands, though she feels little pain.

“I assume we all remember what that means,” Kimani says, leaning forward onto Cassandra for a brief moment. “Corypheus waits for me in the Valley of Sacred Ashes.”

“The Well has told you this?”

Kimani shakes her head at Morrigan. “What just happened was not the Well, though I’m sure perhaps it helped. Irrelevant,” She shrugs. “What is important is that he is revealed, and I must go to him.”

Around them, people crowd, fear slackening their faces. Some are mesmerized by the sky. All are quiet.

“Our forces still return from the Arbor Wilds, Inquisitor,” Cullen says gravely. “We…There is not enough time…”

“It is alright. Cassandra?”

The Seeker nods, her countenance as fierce as the day Kimani woke to her fury. “To the end.”

Kimani nods. She will want Dorian, Vivienne, Blackw-

No. No Blackwall.  _Rainier,_  left in an Inquisition cell until she could look at him without wanting to scream. Kimani looks to Josephine. “If I die, let Rainier go.”

“Inquisitor—“

“No, Josephine. I swear right now, Corypheus will not survive this. I swear on everything I’ve ever loved, and ever lost. I cannot promise the same for myself. There are documents in my quarters that aren’t very official looking, but hold my seal. Anything I’ve cared to meddle in at Skyhold has its ends tied up in those documents. So free the man if I come back dead. Now,” Kimani breaks from the circle around her, forcing everyone to move back and out. She needs air. “Cassandra. Enchanter, Dorian, Solas. Sera?”

“You’re bloody fucking right,  _Sera_ ,” the elf retorts, her face a cross between excitement and fear.

“ _I’m_  not fucking missing this,” Varric says, and her heart nearly overflows when she sees Bianca ready at his side. They have not spoken since her return from Adamant. But he nods to her, now.

Cullen,” Kimani says, turning to him. She smiles and hopes it holds some truth. “Josephine. Leliana. I’m sorry there is little time for one last proper meeting. You must know how grateful I am for you all.”

“Do not speak as if you go to die,” Josephine says softly, looking away. Leliana draws her close, smiling sadly at Kimani.

“Skyhold stands,” Cullen declares, hesitating before stepping forward to take her hands. “You defeat Corypheus. Skyhold stands, Inquisitor. It will continue standing.” It is the closest they may ever get to acknowledge the careful companionship between them. It is enough.

Then the ground shakes as the sky shines bright green, a rumble echoing from the valley, and everyone cries out.

“I feel like we’re being beckoned,” Bull calls, and the sea of people parts for the qunari. Kimani laughs, wiping at sudden, uninhibited tears before they can fall. He’s wearing the most armor she’s ever seen him in so that his bandaged side is covered. Behind him, the Chargers stand ready.

“You think that’s a smart move, The Iron Bull?” She calls, shaking her head.

“I don’t think you’ve got enough time to argue me down,  _kadan_ ,” he says with a shrug. “But you’re the one that’s got all the magic tricks, not me.”

“Very true. Alright then,” She says loudly, turning to meet everyone’s eyes. “We have our final task. Arm yourselves, say a prayer. Corypheus will wait, but no one waits forever. Naturally. Meet me at the gate within the hour.”

When Kimani walks away, past the people and the Chargers, everyone is quiet and she is glad. There is little to cheer about just yet.

She begins humming her little Rivaini tune. It makes her feel a bit less doomed.


	21. To Bring the Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to fight the bad guy.

There are so many voices in her head. She has collected so many voices since the beginning of this ordeal:

The Well, of course, a burbling spring in the back of her mind. If she survives this, she will have to learn Elvhen.

The Fade, more now that the sky is wide open again and she can see the raw realm by simply looking up. Her skin crawls with a thousand invisible things. The Fade chants:  _We don’t want her. We don’t want her._  She wonders if she’ll ever truly understand why.

And Corypheus. Or, the disembodied voice that haunted her after Haven, the one she thought she’d conquered before Skyhold. The one that says,  _beg that I succeed._

Kimani swims in whispered words, none of which stick, as she walks through the sooty-black valley in the shadow of the Fade. Bull and Cassandra talk strategy and she simply looks between them, unhearing, until Bull lay a hand on the Seeker’s shoulder to quiet her. Then he pokes Kimani in the neck until she comes to.

“Can you talk about it?” Bull asks as they walk on, the entirety of their party tensing with the erratic atmosphere. Kimani need not be mage or _somniari_  to know this place is riddled with ghosts, some of whom she knows. One of whom she’d brought with her to the Conclave.  _I am sorry._

There was a moment in the Hinterlands, on her third or fourth run, where she’d folded that grief deep into the recesses of her spirit. Now, back in the place that birthed it, she’s glad to know her locks still hold.

“I think,” Kimani says, scratching her scalp. “That I just need to do it. Fight him. I do not know his magic, so I must lead him until I do. Then, I unleash bit by bit until the dragon is felled. Then I kill him.” They slowly approach where Corypheus waits. He has stayed the hand of his demons; she can see them watching, half-visible behind boulders and rubble. “I’m going straight for him because I must. And you…”

“We’ve got it figured out, Boss,” Bull says beside her. Cassandra nods. “We’ll keep these demon fuckers off of you so you can crisp the Skeleton Man. Or however you’re gonna do it. Seeker’s got your back, Solas has your front.” They’re coming close; Bull gestures behind him to the Chargers, who begin breaking into formations. Kimani takes his hand.

“You die, I’m coming for you in the Fade.”

Bull squeezes back, his smirk a careful thing. “You can’t do that.”

“I couldn’t do a lot of things a year ago, and yet here we are. Don’t make me have to test it, Big’un.”

“After this,” Bull says, pulling her roughly to him, “You finally gonna have that drink with me? I’ve been waiting since Haven,  _kadan_.” He lifts her, and she presses her lips to his nose.  _I love you._

“There’s a saying about those who wait. Now kiss me properly and go so I can get weird.” Kimani locks her arms around his neck.  _I love you._

It hurts to say. Hurts to think. It all hurts as they walk into battle with a madman.

“Just stay alive,” Bull whispers against her mouth. He kisses her fiercely, trying his damnedest to tell her all the things they haven’t said. That they need the chance to say.

And then he’s gone, because the sky only grows greener and the ground underfoot shakes. Solas falls into step with her; Dorian can only catch her eye with a hand to his broad chest as he follows Krem around the ruined temple.  _This is it._

“How do you feel beneath such a sky?” Solas murmurs. He has been quiet, solemn, since the Wilds. He is stubborn but he stands beside her, now.

“I feel like we’re back up there.”

Solas nods. “We are nearly there again.” They pass between a pair of broken pillars and the air changes; some magic. A strange protection, perhaps, from the split sky. No kind of hex; Kimani brings fadestuff to cloud in her hand and feels no resistance. “I will not falter from our task, Inquisitor. I am with you.”

“As am I,” Cassandra says grimly, drawing her sword. Corypheus has tried hard to make this place resemble the Fade; rubble rises into the air like specters, and the wind comes in gusts, howling in pain. Demons lurk in the chaos. This is what he wants; he is so sadly bound to darkness, to no purpose.

_No kingdom for him._

If the Fade doesn’t want her, it certainly does not want him. Perhaps that means something.

“He will have the orb,” Solas murmurs as they begin to walk the last stretch to the center of the destroyed temple. The Fade reacts, striking at the ground tauntingly in bolts of green lightning around them, missing by too much distance to be true threats.

“Fuck his orb,” Kimani mutters as she sees the tall, thin body of her enemy in her sights, and begins to sing.

…

_I knew you would come._

It is all…spectacle. Corypheus is a flash of frightening light and turn of phrase and power he shouldn’t have, but he is a spectacle. He laughs at Kimani, berates her, lauds his own plan of destruction with the lilt of a chantry priest between the volleys of corrupted magic he throws at her. She dodges, dancing into fade-step after fade-step and slinging petty magics to see what holds, what breaks his stone skin.

Krem had taught her this. Only bulls rush, and even then they evaluate before their horns catch flesh. Kimani prefers dancing. The Fade is so loud in her ears that the Well is swallowed up in its sound. She can’t think of what that might mean now.

Corypheus lifts the temple into the air, rubble rising like sordid clouds; their clashes of magic flash red and green, red and white, black and green. Dorian’s ghosts howl around Fade demons and the Chargers make swift work of horrors; Cassandra’s war cry is blood-furious and screeching and Solas is light of foot and so  _angry,_  the smooth curves of his face contorting as he casts, breaking the ground with Fade-fists.

Above them, two dragons clash like thunderclaps and rain their own blood.

“You are nothing,” Corypheus growls, his upper body flinging like a whip as he hurls spells. Kimani watches the dragons, watches Mythal’s dragon as it catches the other by the neck, throwing it. Not dead yet. She ducks her head to avoid blighted blood on her face, tumbling out of the way of a rushing wall of corrupt magic.

And then Vivienne is there, swinging her spirit sword, ferocious and mighty, slinking away from Corypheus’ hold with a fiery grace. Corypheus locks onto her, unleashing a stampeding spell that meets her barrier with a sickening thwack. Vivienne cries out but holds her ground, and Kimani has a flash of her, dead, in her mind. Dorian rushes to her aid and Kimani sees his corpse, too, in her mind’s eye. New fear creeps into the spaces her adrenaline has not reached.

Kimani whips hellfire at Corypheus’ eyes and he roars, the sound pitching louder as Dorian sets the dead upon him. As he pulls Vivienne away Kimani looks up to the sky, beseeching Mythal’s dragon.  _Please. Please, you must hurry._

There is an unearthly screech behind her and Kimani turns too slowly; the terror demon is inches from her face and would have claimed her, had not a maul found its way through its back. Bull tosses the body away.

“Don’t look up,” he pants. “Look at him.” And then he bounds off to cover his boys. 

Kimani whirls around at the sound of Corypheus’ beckoning.

“Have you had enough, Pretender?’” He yells. “You have brought your friends to die for naught. Bend your knee and  _give me what is mine_.” He holds the orb in hand. It is lit with red lightning that crawls over it the way Kimani’s skin crawls.

The word  _ORB_  explodes in her head and Kimani casts a fireball on reflex, but it is only the Well speaking.

 _Orb._ Solas says the orb is Elven. Solas. Kimani looks around for him. Where…?

 _When the dragon falls, you must take back the orb,_ The Well says.

“How the  _fuck_ ,” Kimani shouts, dodging a shock of lightning, “Am I supposed to do that?” She calls for Vivienne to cover her as she darts closer to Corypheus, who begins declaring his impending victory.

The orb is pulsing and held fast in his grip, but it once held the magic in Kimani’s palm. She extends the Anchored hand and pulls as though she casts a spell.

Nothing. She tries again, pulling harder, and gets nothing but misty fadestuff spilling from her pores.

Once more, so hard it hurts.

A flicker of green in the blood-red center of the orb. Not enough, but she only need to retrieve it. The Well gives no answer to the question of what the orb would do (it glows red where it once was green, and Kimani can guess what that might mean). It only repeats itself.  _Orb. Orb._

She lets fadestuff coalesce in her hands before extending it like rope, a lasso. She swings it about her head as a test.

Then snaps it at Corypheus.

“ _Gnat_ ,” he howls, rounding on her, and the ground beneath her feet erupts, sending her flying. “Worthless, thieving  _filth_.”

Kimani has grown tired of the names.

“And yet  _here we are_ ,” She yells, breaking her fall with a cloud of fadestuff that propels her forward. She throws fireball after fireball that catch on his robes. The flames climb him like a blighted tree. “Quite hardy for a gnat!"

Already she can taste the blood on her lips, reaches for her potions and finds the supply dwindling. If she has to die then he has to go, too. That’s the only way this works. He dies. He  _dies_.

An ear-piercing screech stills the battlefield. Everyone, even Bull, looks up, and everyone scatters in time to clear the ground for a fallen dragon. Dark scales. Ungodly ridges, flayed open by tusk-sized talons, flecks of red lyrium roots blackened by blood.

Corypheus' dragon. The right dragon, dead.

Kimani watches the piece of Corypheus’ soul rise from the corpse and nearly weeps with relief. _Good_. The Fade has not lessened it stormy raging above them, has not ceased its murmuring of  _you must_ , in her ear. She is ready for this to be over, one way or another.

She spots Bull some ways behind Corypheus with a circle of dead demons around him. Good. He hasn’t yet seen the trick in full effect. Kimani takes a deep breath, pulling in time with her inhale until she’s full, and exhales a wave of veilfire at an off-kilter Corypheus. The scene around them snaps back to life as her squad surges at new demons, screeching and flailing like their master.

 _ORB_ , the Well shouts, but Kimani already has her eye on it as she forms the Fade-whip again, aiming for it. When she snaps the whip she leans further into it so she might see; the tip of the whip slaps against the orb and Kimani heaves. The tip blossoms into a bubble of Fade, encompassing the orb so that when Kimani pulls back, it flies towards her.  _Shit. Yes. Fuck._

But Kimani screams when the orb slams into her chest, clutched with bloody hands, and everything around her is lost in an explosion of Fade-green.

…

 _I can’t see. I can’t fucking see._ She thinks she’s floating, points her toes and stretches her legs and finds no solid ground. Yes. Floating.  _Oh, spirits._

_A moment. We need from you._

_More? You want more. I’m going to die. Am I going to die?_ She can feel herself tipping backwards, going upside down, and she whimpers in the Fade’s grasp; the skin-crawl is truly full-body, manifesting everywhere but her mouth though there is a hot, bitter taste on her tongue. Blood, and something else.

 _Give us what we need, and you will triumph over it._ This is the Fade; simple, blunt, waiting only for compliance.

_I will give you what you need. I have no choice. But, please. Will I die?_

_We don’t want you._ It says.  _Perhaps. Give us what we need._

_Ah, shit. I’m going to die._

_Give._  The air around her clears and she is floating, just high enough above the ground so that her feet couldn’t reach no matter how she tried. Corypheus wails before her as he casts spell after useless spell against the invisible barrier that holds her, lamenting his failure and her seeming ascendance. But this has nothing to do with gods. This is the Fade. She’s known the Fade, knows the Fade, even has the Fade writ in her bones. It might not save her, but it’d kill him. It has to.

 _Bright,_  the Fade says. Can the Fade become impatient?  _Give. Us._ Fadestuff fingers press at her lips, and she thinks she understands. What a lie.

 _Just kill him_ , Kimani pleads. Closes her eyes. Opens her mouth.

For a moment her body is out of her control, rising as she’s filled with what feels like a rush of wind but must be something more. She tries to count time, loses her nerve, tries to find the courage to open her eyes and take in the  entity that was going to take her life.

She keeps her eyes shut. But then her feet hit the ground again, and she’s wide open. Confused, but there is little time to think if she's not dead and Corypheus still stands before her.

She's never seen a demon show quiet so much fear. 

Kimani takes a tentative step forward and Corypheus raises his hand, but she casts so hard he nearly topples over, falling to his knees. Even so low he is nearly eye-level to her, panting with an expression split open in despair, in fear. His lips move wordlessly. She thinks he prays to his gods.

Kimani lay her hand over where his heart might be; she doesn’t know why she does it until she’s touching him, curling her nails against lizard-rough skin. If this were still up to her she would hinge her arm back and punch him through, take his blighted heart as a prize, but the Fade stills her. Death isn’t in the taking of his heart; It should lie  _in_  his heart, blooming like a flower to bring him where he wishes to be most.

Kimani looks down at the slack-jawed magister and raises an eyebrow.  _No kingdom for you._

She remembers little of how she opened the Fade at Adamant, only remembers that it hurt as it does now, as something hot pushes deep in her chest, up into her arm and down to the Anchor. Her palm is on fire and suddenly Corypheus is glowing green in the cracks of his skin, and he’s screaming as everything dancing in the air falls back down to earth in a storm of rubble.

The rift opens on him from the inside, burning him from the inside, swallowing him from the inside with one sickening crack of his body as it snaps in half. A painful glow of too familiar light. And then, nothing.

Just a wisp of smoke that breaks away in the passing breeze.

Kimani exhales in a tumbling whimper.  _Gone. He’s gone. It’s done. Really?_

Her knees buckle and she falls to the ground in what feels gentler than it surely is. The back of her head jolts as it hits the gravel, and she blinks away stars only to realize she’s  _seeing_ stars. Swirls of stars in the blue-black night sky, parted by a weak crack glowing sickly green. The light from the Fade dims as it retreats into its proper realm; with time, it will match the scar on the opposite side of Kimani’s vision, serene in its murky purple haze. The Fade is blissfully silent.

“Not...even…a thank-you,” Kimani croaks, laughing at her own ill-timed joke with a groan. She feels so heavy, so leaden that It has to mean she’s dying. She thinks. She can’t feel her tears, but they forge clean paths of skin down her temples. “Oh, damn it.”

Her  _mother_. Months since they’d spoken, since they’d met ind reams, and now Kimani will never receive her letter and her mother will hear on the streets that her daughter, the Inquisitor, is dead.

Triumphant. But, dead. And Asha Lia will cry in Bann Trevelyan’s arms. And they will mourn the daughter they hardly knew.

‘Don’t be afraid,” Cole murmurs, appearing above her. Kimani wheezes, frightened; before her now is the sweetest harbinger of death anyone could ask for, if they were asking. He would commit her to the dark with kind pale eyes and a watery smile, too genuine. Helping.

“Cole…”

He puts a finger to his lips. “Brighter and brighter, like fire with more kindling. You will not die.”

“Please.”

“Just wait.” He lay a cool, bony hand on her forehead. “Do you feel it?”

“Feel-“Kimani cries out as the Anchor burns, stabbing and searing and unrelenting, and she shoots up from the ground, her upper body flung against Cole who grabs her with a surprisingly strong grip as she screams. Her muscles contract, that hand curling in on itself.

Cole holds her through it. “Good pain. Bad thank-you.”

Truly she feels whole, after. There is blood in her mouth and on her hands and—from the way Cole wipes at her forehead—on her face. Not dead. Tired, hellishly sore, stiff and swollen, but not dead.

“Really?” She asks Cole, who has lost his hat. He nods.

Footsteps thunder as her squad approaches and she looks to them, frantically counting the bruised and bloody faces of her friends. Her fellow champions. Everyone seems to have survived the ordeal.

_The ordeal that is finished._

“Okay,” She says hoarsely, pulling back from Cole. Everyone’s staring; she must look a sight. “Alright. Okay. We’re…done. Here. We’re done here. But I don’t think I can walk.”

“You are truly alright?’ Cassandra asks, and her voice is broken, the soft sweetness of her nature spilling through. “We saw…Maker, the Fade took you in its  _palm_ …”

Kimani nods wearily. “We had a chat. And it helped me keep my word. Corypheus is dead.” She wants to scream it from the top of every building, every tree, from the top of the Frostbacks. 

“And look at you. _Not_ dead,” Bull says, grinning blood.

“Glad you’re in a good mood,” Kimani rasps wrily, lifting her arms to him with a smirk. Her legs feel swollen, she’ll take no chances. “The smaller fuck needs a lift.”

…

She’d forgotten Solas, and only remembers him once she sits at the edge of her bed with Nona’s healing hands firm against her inflamed legs. He is gone. Disappeared. Leliana searches for him.

_If he is gone…No. If he is gone, that is that._

“Was it bad, being cheered as a hero while I hung limp in my lover’s arms?” Kimani asks Nona, laughing when the medic reddens. “Oh, come. Bull told me you knew. Told him he was lucky I loved him. You were good to say that, Nona.”

“My lady…”

“Never really been that. Just ended up with the name, you see.”

“Yes, Worship.”

Kimani makes a face. “I suppose it’s too late to be irritated by my titles. I’d like it if you called me Kimani, but I won’t force it. I get to call everyone by their names, though.”

“You’re the only one of us killing age-old magisters,” Nona murmurs, reddening further when Kimani laughs.

“Just the one. Hopefully, the only one. I’m going gray.” Kimani grins when Nona giggles, slapping her hand over her mouth.

“Your legs should hurt less now, your Worship,” Nona says once she’s caught her breath, standing. Kimani tries the same, finding her legs to be a little sore but in working order.

“So,” She bumps amiably against Nona, “You have served at Adamant, saved the life of a renowned qunari mercenary from certain death in the Arbor Wilds, eased the pain of the Inquisitor after she saved Thedas…Nona, you are making quite a name for yourself.  _Everyone_  will want you. You might get letters from Tevinter! Ah, my dear. Thank you,” she adds seriously, taking Nona’s hands. “If you ever need anything, ever want anything…you’re my friend. I’m very glad I made you take a nap at Adamant.”

Once Nona’s gone Kimani can still hear the echoes of her laughter for a few, long minutes. Her room seems so small as she stands in it, as though the walls have come closer, the furniture grown larger. The fire blazes too hot; she raises a hand to douse it completely, and the cool wind through her balcony door can finally make its way across her skin.

The swell of music from the great hall reaches her, and she looks down. The party. There’s a party going on. Kimani’s never been to a proper party; not one meant for honest laughter and joy, at least, and certainly not one in her honor. There is a lovely suit and a pretty Orlesian dress hanging on the open doors of her wardrobe so that she may pick.

Kimani scoffs. They give her a choice. She takes the suit, running her fingers over the heavy, deep blue silk of the jacket and tracing the silver flowers embroidered into the undershirt and matching vest. She quickly dresses herself and then turns to gather the jewelry, pressing her hands to her cheeks as she gasps in surprise. Her blue scarf, old and fraying in the flowers, is folded neatly, with the jawbone necklace settled atop it. Kimani had left them to be buried with her if she died, or to represent her body if there was no body left to bury. Someone has tried to shine the bone. When she unfolds the scarf, she sees it has been pressed.

“Who had the time…?”

Josephine. Of course.

This, for whatever reason, is the breaking point. Kimani can’t muffle the sob that rises in her throat. She falls to her knees, letting out another anguished cry and it stretches on for what could be forever, if she commits to the moment. She could be screaming forever. 

Power is an undoing force. Kimani lets herself cry, full throated and loud, hugging herself tightly as she shakes. It is finished. All of it: from the moment she felt some was wrong in the Conclave to wake up to a Seeker’s glare, to every cursed day in between. From Redcliffe to Adamant. From Orlais to the place where it all began. Dorian’s face when he first tastes nesomni. Cassandra setting her straight after her angry trip to the Hinterlands. Bull, holding her magic in his hands for the first time. The faces of all that she’d killed, maimed, fought, to defend herself and a cause she had no choice but to embody.

All of it. It all pours out into the air as she weeps so that, finally, the wind can carry it into the mountains. She need not hold on to it any longer.  _I’m done._

“Shh,  _kadan_.” Bull’s large hand spans her back, and she jerks her head up; he towers over her left side, kneeling, freshly bandaged and without his armor. Too quiet for his own good, but he’s not alone; Half a dozen pairs of eyes peek through the bars of her banister. Her team. Her people.

Kimani hiccups a laugh, tears rolling down her cheeks when she squeezes her eyes shut. She gives a shuddering sigh, leaning against Bull.

‘That’s better,” Bull murmurs, scooping her up and setting her on her feet when she protests at being held. “This is a damned good color on you, Kimani.”

“Flatterer,” She sniffles, wrapping her arms around him. It is so good to have someone to hold. Someone to hold her. Bull wraps one great arm around her, stroking her hair with the other.

“I love you, you know,” He says softly, ignoring the whistles from the stairs.

“You’d better,” Kimani says into his chest. “I just killed the thing that would be god.”

“Against you? He never had a chance.  _Ataashi, asaaranda, asala beres-taar_. My  _kadan_. You’re free of it. You have your victory.”

“And I have my life. And my limbs. And my people. And my love. Which is a nice addition.”

“Just a little extra,” Bull grins, and she reaches for him. He still tastes like soot, a little trace of blood, some elfroot. “So. Ready to eat?” he asks, rubbing her shoulders briskly. “And drink? And be a little merry?”

Kimani nods, wiping the remaining tears from her face. She goes for her scarf, tucking it into the inner pocket of her jacket. Then she fastens her necklace and looks in the mirror: She is worn, red around the nose and eyes. An array bruises, slow to heal.

But she is flush with life. And safe. And whole. Like the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue, after this.  
> Let me know what you think.


	22. Verity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue. Kimani finally gets her mother's letter.

The Anchor glows softly like a far-away star. Kimani holds it to her face and pretends it holds warmth, that it can serve some other use now that it is a remnant of a thwarted apocalypse. She would ask the one that knows best, but Solas is gone. For good, she thinks, after three weeks of no word. Not even a goodbye letter. She does not attempt to search for him in dreams (her dreams are few and simple, only to keep the skill fresh. For anything beyond that, she is too tired). She knows that theirs was always a temporary companionship, but Solas had understood so many things. She never hadto teach him to understand her.

But Bull is still a good student: enthusiastic, eager.

They trade lessons in magic for qunlat, she breathes veilfire at night, curling the flames into dancing fingers and he answers her questions. His being Tal-Vashoth is still only his for now, and Kimani understands; there are things in her past that she does not yet explain. For example, Bull asks no questions when he accompanies her to the Temple of Sacred Ashes and she lay a bouquet of flowers in the shadow of the most complete pillar she can find, binding them to the ruins with a murmur. Otherwise they start with small ventures after having spent themselves in each other, or in the morning when sunlight makes revealing the past a softer endeavor.

She wears the dragon’s tooth necklace proudly once she discovers it; Dagna’s tongue slips  _(“How do you like your gift?”)_ and she goes to Bull directly. The necklace is capped in pale dawnstone. Its edges are smoothed, and the swirling, engraved design is colored in with a darker, rose-colored ink. When she lay it against her scarf, it brings out the pastel pink flowers, and Bull looks pleased when she slips it over her head.

“I didn’t think Corypheus would come for you so soon, or else it would have been done before,” He says sheepishly.

“You’ve been making this…?”

“Well, you sent us ahead to the Wilds, remember? And maybe we found a dragon. And killed it? Anyway, Dagna had only just started once we came back from the Wilds. I would’ve sent it ahead, but I didn’t realize I even wanted to do it until you laid that thing on my chest when I got wounded.” Bull points to the jawbone necklace. “You told Nona to keep it there. Like I was wearing it. And it reminded me of this old thing the qunari do for their  _kadan_. We split a dragon’s tooth in two so if I have to go somewhere, or you have to go, we’ll still be together. Doesn’t matter for how long, or how far. But it’s not a…there’s no penalty for wanting to end it. It’s just a symbol of the love now.’”

He can barely finish before she’s up on her toes, pulling him to her, kissing him and kissing him and pushing him towards her bed, but he stops her. Laughs shakily, and shows her his own. Kimani nearly cries when she sees her family’s sun sigil carved into the back of his (“ _I like your suns”_ ). The topping on the cake: the string on her dragon’s tooth is long enough that she can wear both necklaces at the same time, and they are equally visible.

He has no qualms with her advances after that.

…

By the time Kimani accepts Solas is gone for good, Skyhold has taken on a livelier spirit. People come in by the drove daily, nobles from all over and others who simply want to wish the Inquisitor well. Politics seep out of the smiles of Orlesians and Fereldans alike; Kimani learns to do the same. Day after day, after day, smile after smile after curtsey. Some days, she misses the insistent murmuring of the Well, which has gone nearly silent in the weeks since she sang to a dragon for help.

One day she escapes to the tavern, plopping down on the first open stool at the bar.

“I don’t even care which wine,” Kimani says kindly to Cabot, who nods wordlessly. The tavern is always bustling, full of people looking for a bite to eat, work, loved ones, a lover for the night. In the middle of the day it is full of workers on break, those too tired and too familiar with the flustered Inquisitor to do much more than nod respectfully as she passes. She likes  _Herald’s Res_ t at lunch time. Even the wine, though not so lovely as what she keeps in her quarters, is full-bodied and warm: a comfort.

She only needs a moment to gather her mind. Just a moment.

“It’s not so bad,” she says to herself. She plays with the jawbone necklace, pressing the pads of her fingers onto the rounded teeth. “Just busy.”

“Indeed, my lady,” A familiar voice says. Kimani smiles at Rainier, who is slightly less of a presence without the armor of his stolen station. He leaves a seat between them when he sits. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, Thom. I’m glad to see you. You look well.”

“Been working sunup to sun down. It’s a good change. A good penance.”

“If you wish it so,” Kimani inclines her head. “As long as you wish.”

“Until the Wardens come for me, my Lady.”

“You can rest until the Wardens come for you, you know. You may.”

“Please. You have already saved my life. I won’t have any further kindness.”

“I have done horrible things too, Thom. Of my own volition. I understand the need to earn your place again.” She squeezes his shoulder, hesitates, then pats his fuzzy jaw. “But you have paid penance. You—“

“Afternoon,” Rainier says flatly, looking beyond her. Kimani turns and sees a woman, still a kid, stopped in her tracks.

Umber skin and dark, dark eyes and thin limbs beneath a few layers of traveling clothes. Her locs are thick and spill over her shoulders, tied with colorful string and ended in dull bronze caps. Her eyes are wide and her breath comes fast, as though she’d been walking quickly, or running.

“I can’t sit down?” The kid asks, raising her hands. Then she points one at Kimani. “Alright. You’re Inquisitor, aren’t you?”

“Feels like you knew that,” Blackwall says, softening when Kimani waves him down.

“I’ve got it. Yes, I’m Kimani Trevelyan. And you are?”

“Tired as shit and glad the world’s done ending,” The kid laughs, sitting when Kimani offers her the seat between her and Thom. She casts a sideways glance at him before turning her attentions to Kimani. “But that’s too long. I’m called Nashan.”

Kimani’s heart skips a beat. Nashan. Kimani has an aunt named Nashan in Rivain; this is just a kid. But, names are so often given in honor of relatives...  _Can’t be_. She narrows her eyes at the girl, who goes shifty when Kimani leans in. The girl smells like the road, hay, and Kimani’s hair oil. The rose oil, albeit with less herbs. Curious.

“Nashan.”

The girl nods. “Yes. Nashan Anur Lia. You are Kimani Patris. Aunt Asha’s daughter. Oh!” She quips, fumbling in her traveling coat. Kimani can only watch her, numb and buzzing at the sound of her family name, the way her tongue slips out the corner of her mouth as she digs into the seemingly endless coat, the way her locs shake with the effort, the soft arch of her jet-black brows. Could they look alike, truly? Yes, there is the nose…

Then the girl whose name is Nashan Lia pulls out a letter, handing it to her. The sun on her necklace--the sun, now, on Bull’s necklace-- is inked clearly into the girl’s inner wrist. Kimani goes cold.

“Spirits,” she gasps, glancing at Blackwall who leans to see; his bushy eyebrows shoot up as he looks between wrist and necklace. Nashan furrows her brow and looks down, jumping and covering the mark.

“Shit. I know it’s…well it’s  _yours_  since you’re first-born of the first-born and all, but I wanted something that meant home and—“

“Nashan.” Kimani says the name of her aunt. Also the name of her cousin, apparently. She takes the letter, opening it swiftly. Her mother’s handwriting is scrawled neatly across the front, even neater inside. The scent of peppermint is long gone; it mostly smells like the strange aroma of Nashan’s coat.  “My mother sent you with this? Why? You’re just a child, and the Marches are…are  _far_.”

“I’m eighteen, actually. And I was already here. Well…In Ferelden. Don’t ask me how the letter found me, I hadn’t even written my own parents to tell where I was…Aunt Asha is indeed the eldest of her sisters. First in birth and magic. And so here we are. I would have been here earlier, but the world  _actually_  started ending. And then…well, I’m here now, right? Inquisitor?” Nashan glances around her to Bull, who lumbers into the tavern with his sights on the bar, stopping abruptly when Kimani takes the girl’s hand in hers unmarked one.

The letter reads:

_Daughter,_

_I’ve tricked you a little, and found a way to my purposes without explicitly going against your wishes. Perhaps it is a fool’s errand to have two of us in the same, dangerous place. Perhaps I could have been some help to you. But that is neither here nor there; I only hope that you remain safe in the trials to come. There are so many stories growing about you. I trust you will do well in Orlais. Beware the false safety of masks, my love._

_This is your cousin, if she hasn’t gotten to it or you haven’t figured it out. Aunt Tavi’s youngest child, if you remember my speaking of her in letters while you were at the Circle. Maybe not. She is Nashan the Younger, and she’s a rascal. I’d have her safe with you, as she has not been safe since she ran from the Marches. But I’ll let her tell her own tale._

_I feel the tides of your war might turn soon. I feel distance, that I might not see you, even in dreams, until this is all over. Know that I love you, despite everything and all of the time we’ve missed. And I believe you are the hero these people say you are. You are my daughter, after all. And your mother had quite a youth herself, though admittedly not so historic._

_Take care of your cousin. When you are able, when the war is over and you are victorious, I’d have you both back in Ostwick for a time, at least. Aunt Tavi would love to see her hardheaded child. And I would love to finally see mine._

_-Asha Kenee_

“Mama, you crazy person.” Kimani mutters, jumping when Nashan reaches out to wipe away her tears. The girl is serious now, her gaze unwavering as she pats Kimani’s cheeks.

“Cousin Kimani, I know you’ve never been home, that you’ve been forced out here alone. Aunt Asha just thought… _I’m_  a little home. You’ve never met me, but we’re family. Plus, they were tired of me running around Ferelden. Though, I had Skyhold in my sights.” Nashan stops, eyeing Bull again warily as he comes near. She nods curtly. “ _Shenadan, sten_.”

Bull scoffs. “Tal-Vashoth here, kid. But I appreciate the politeness. Oh, she’s quick,” He says as she touches Kimani’s dragon tooth necklace while frowning at Bull’s. When he comes closer, turning the tooth to the back side, her eyes widen.

“Andraste’s ass,” Nashan breathes. “Oh, Maker. Spirits.  _Everyone_.”

But Kimani hasn’t stopped crying quietly between Bull, Nashan, and a speechless Rainier. She hasn’t let go of her cousin’s hand. It is warm and dry, with blunt nails and long fingers. The palm is rough, calloused. The mark on her wrist is the mark of her family. This girl is her family. And when they can, when Skyhold is settled and fewer nobles come to call, when Vivienne is on her way to take the Sunburst Throne and Cassandra leaves to begin her rebuilding of the Seekers, when it is calm enough to leave her advisers at the helm, she will go back to the Marches and visit her mother.

Kimani leans back against Bull, who rubs her shoulders soothingly. She takes in the sounds of the tavern and the feel of her kin’s hand between hers. She lets her happiness rise beyond the tempered uncertainty she manages in case the world falls back to ruin.

She can indulge, even if for a moment, because for a moment her world is one of utter peace, and her heart is full.

 

-end-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, y'all. I'm still writing stuff about Kimani and Bull, including AUs and meme stuff and all of that.  
> There's a sequel called A Thousand Stars Between Teeth that seems to update weekly, when I'm good about my shit. Check it out if you're interested in what goes on between the end of Inquisition and the Trespasser DLC. Lots of family stuff, eventual Tal-Vashoth Problems, Kimani and Bull making a relationship after the world's done ending. And yes, of course, Kimani goes home.
> 
> Anywho, I hope you enjoyed it. :)


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